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State v. Peterson7/31/1996
The defendant was tried for the first-degree murder of Charles Oakley. The evidence showed that on 19 September 1992, customers of Allen's Sports Supply found Mr. Oakley, its owner and manager, incoherent and bleeding from the head. The front panel of the cash register had been torn off, and the drawer had been pried open. A latent fingerprint matching the defendant's was found on a piece of plastic that had been broken from the register.
The victim remained hospitalized until he was taken off of life support and died on 7 October 1992. The victim died as the result of a subdural hematoma due to blunt trauma to the head.
On 4 November 1992, Detective Bryan Pettus and Detective Jeff Allsbrook interviewed the defendant, who was in custody for unrelated charges. The defendant was advised of his Miranda rights and waived them. He then gave three conflicting statements. He first stated that he had been in the store on 20 September 1992 to buy fishhooks, but had not been there the day before. When the detectives told him that the store was closed that day and that his fingerprint had been found in the store, he recanted and stated that two of his friends took him to the store, where they found the victim bleeding on the floor. They then took the money and left. Upon further questioning by the detectives, the defendant again changed his story and stated that on the day of the robbery, he had been smoking crack with an individual named Corky. He said that he and Corky went to the victim's store, where they saw the victim proceed to open his business. Corky said he wanted to rob the place, and the defendant protested. Corky then went into the store with a pipe. A few minutes later, the defendant found the victim lying on the floor bleeding. The defendant stated that he took fifty-two dollars from the register.
After a pretrial hearing and voir dire at trial, the trial court denied the defendant's motion to suppress his statement. The defendant was convicted of first-degree murder based on the felony murder rule. The jury recommended a sentence of life in prison, which was imposed. The defendant appealed.
WEBB, Justice.
The defendant first assigns error to the State's use of a peremptory challenge to excuse a black prospective juror. He asserts that the State impermissibly exercised the challenge solely on the basis of the prospective juror's race. The defendant contends that the prosecutor's proffered reasons for the challenge were pretextual and that the trial court abused its discretion in failing to hold a hearing on the objection and failing to allow the defendant an opportunity for surrebuttal. He says this violated his state and federal constitutional rights. N.C. Const. art. I, § 26; Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 90 L. Ed. 2d 69, 106 S. Ct. 1712 (1986).
The defendant in this case is black, the victim was white, and the excused prospective juror, Emma Parker, is a black female. After questioning Ms. Parker, the State exercised one of its peremptory challenges to excuse her. The State explained without prompting that she had been convicted on six occasions of issuing worthless checks and was not forthright about her convictions upon questioning. The State also expressed concern about Ms. Parker's health; she had suffered a heart attack and was on medication. The defendant then made an objection based on Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 90 L. Ed. 2d 69, 106 S. Ct. 1712. The trial court responded "Okay" and excused Ms. Parker.
In Batson, the United States Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State from peremptorily challenging jurors solely on the basis of race. Batson,
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