State v. Banks

245 S.E.2d 743, 295 N.C. 399, 1978 N.C. LEXIS 891
CourtSupreme Court of North Carolina
DecidedJuly 14, 1978
Docket72
StatusPublished
Cited by81 cases

This text of 245 S.E.2d 743 (State v. Banks) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Banks, 245 S.E.2d 743, 295 N.C. 399, 1978 N.C. LEXIS 891 (N.C. 1978).

Opinion

BRANCH, Justice.

By his first assignment of error, defendant contends that G.S. 14-39 is unconstitutional on its face and as applied to him.

G.S. 14-39 in part provides:

(a) Any person who shall unlawfully confine, restrain, or remove from one place to another, any other person 16 years of age or over without the consent of such person, or any other person under the age of 16 years without the consent of a parent or legal custodian of such person, shall be guilty of kidnapping if such confinement, restraint or removal is for the purpose of:
(1) Holding such other person for ransom or as a hostage or using such other person as a shield; or
(2) Facilitating the commission of any felony or facilitating flight of any person following the commission of a felony; or
(3) Doing serious bodily harm to or terrorizing the person so confined, restrained or removed or any other person.
*404 (b) Any person convicted of kidnapping shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than 25 years nor more than life. If the person kidnapped, as defined in subsection (a), was released by the defendant in a safe place and had not been sexually assaulted or seriously injured, the person so convicted shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 25 years, or by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or both, in the discretion of the court.

Defendant first argues that he was denied due process of law upon his conviction under this statute because its provisions were so vague that men of common intelligence must guess as to its meaning and differ as to its application. This argument was answered adversely to defendant in State v. Fulcher, 294 N.C. 503, 243 S.E. 2d 338 (1978). There Justice Lake speaking for the unanimous Court stated:

G.S. 14-39, as herein construed, is not vague. The conduct which it forbids is clearly set forth in the statute. The punishment prescribed is severe but is not cruel or unusual in the constitutional sense. State v. Cameron, 284 N.C. 165, 200 S.E. 2d 186 (1973), cert. den., 418 U.S. 905; State v. Carter, 269 N.C. 697, 153 S.E. 2d 388 (1967); State v. Davis, 267 N.C. 126, 147 S.E. 2d 570 (1966). Consequently, the statute, on its face, does not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, or the Law of the Land Clause of Article I, § 19, of the Constitution of North Carolina, or the Cruel or Unusual Punishment Clause of either Constitution. The statute applies to all who violate it without exception or classification. Consequently, it does not, upon its face, violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States or the like clause contained in Article I, § 19, of the Constitution of North Carolina. 294 N.C. at 525.

Defendant further argues that in addition to being unconstitutionally vague, G.S. 14-39 also violates the requirement of due process of law by being “overly broad.” The fault of over-breadth is often very intimately related to the vice of “vagueness.” Note, The First Amendment Overbreadth Doctrine, *405 83 Harv. L. Rev. 844 (1970). However, the overbreadth doctrine is a separate principle devised to strike down statutes which attempt to regulate activity which the State is constitutionally forbidden to regulate, such as activity protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. E.g., Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 88 S.Ct. 391, 19 L.Ed. 2d 444 (1967); United States v. Dellinger, 472 F. 2d 340, 357 (7th Cir. 1972), cert. den., 410 U.S. 970 (1973); State ex rel. Purcell v. Superior Court, 111 Ariz. 582, 584, 535 P. 2d 1299, 1301 (1975); Note, 83 Harv. L. Rev., supra. G.S. 14-39 does not interfere or prohibit any activity protected by the First Amendment or any other Federal or State constitutional provision. It is a penal statute completely within the State’s police power. The doctrine of overbreadth has no application to it. We, therefore, hold that G.S. 14-39 is neither unconstitutionally vague nor “overbroad.”

Defendant assigns as error the failure of the trial judge to allow his motion to arrest judgment upon the verdicts of guilty of crime against nature, robbery with a dangerous weapon and assault with intent to commit rape. He argues that these crimes are lesser included offenses of the crime of kidnapping as defined by G.S. 14-39. In support of his position, he relies upon the well-established rule that when an accused is .convicted of first degree murder under the felony murder rule pursuant to G.S. 14-17, there can be no additional punishment for the underlying felony. State v. Williams, 284 N.C. 67, 199 S.E. 2d 409 (1973); State v. Carroll, 282 N.C. 326, 193 S.E. 2d 85 (1972); State v. Thompson, 280 N.C. 202, 185 S.E. 2d 666 (1972). The rationale of this rule was clearly stated in State v. Thompson, supra, by Chief Justice Bobbitt in the following language:

. . . When a person is convicted of murder in the first degree no separate punishment may be imposed for any lesser included offense. Technically, feloniously breaking and entering a dwelling is never a lesser included offense of the crime of murder. However, in the present and similar factual situations, a cognate principle applies. Here, proof that defendant feloniously broke into and entered the dwelling of Cecil Mackey, to wit, Apartment #3, 3517 Burkland Drive, was an essential and indispensable element in the State’s proof of murder committed in the perpetration of the felony of feloniously breaking into and entering that particular dwell *406 ing. The conviction of defendant for felony-murder, that is, murder in the first degree without proof of malice, premeditation or deliberation, was based on a finding by the jury that the murder was committed in the perpetration of the felonious breaking and entering. In this sense, the felonious breaking and entering was a lesser included offense of the felony-murder. Hence, the separate verdict of guilty of felonious breaking and entering affords no basis for additional punishment. If defendant had been acquitted in a prior trial of the separate charge of felonious breaking and entering, a plea of former jeopardy would have precluded subsequent prosecution of the theory of felony-murder. [Citation omitted.] 280 N.C. at 215-216.
This is inapposite to kidnapping as defined in G.S. 14-39. The charges of crime against nature, assault with intent to commit rape and robbery with a dangerous weapon were alleged in the bill of indictment charging kidnapping as the purposes for which the defendant confined and restrained the victim. The charges so alleged were not elements of the offense of kidnapping which the State had to prove as is the case of the underlying felony in the felony murder rule.

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Bluebook (online)
245 S.E.2d 743, 295 N.C. 399, 1978 N.C. LEXIS 891, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-banks-nc-1978.