State v. Scott

587 S.E.2d 485, 161 N.C. App. 104, 2003 N.C. App. LEXIS 1999
CourtCourt of Appeals of North Carolina
DecidedNovember 4, 2003
DocketNo. COA02-1527
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 587 S.E.2d 485 (State v. Scott) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals 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. Scott, 587 S.E.2d 485, 161 N.C. App. 104, 2003 N.C. App. LEXIS 1999 (N.C. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinion

EAGLES, Chief Judge.

Defendant Ricky Earl Scott was convicted of first-degree kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and maiming without malice. On appeal, defendant brings forth four arguments: (1) that the State failed to prove the elements [105]*105of the maiming charge; (2) that the trial court erred by failing to dismiss the kidnapping charge; (3) that the trial court erred by failing to dismiss the assault charge; and (4) that entering convictions against defendant for kidnapping, assault and maiming violated the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy. After careful consideration of the record and briefs, we affirm in part and reverse and remand in part.

The evidence tends to show the following. Defendant and Renate Heusmann worked together at Jonathan Reid. Defendant took Heusmann out on a date in late July 1997. At that time, Heusmann was also working a second job as a waitress at John’s Restaurant. Heusmann’s shift at the restaurant on 2 August 1997 ended around 11 p.m. Near the end of her shift, Heusmann’s daughter arrived to pick her up. Heusmann’s daughter told her that defendant was waiting for Heusmann in his car outside the restaurant.

Heusmann went outside and talked to defendant in the parking lot. They decided not to go out to a club that night, as they had planned to do, because Heusmann was tired. Defendant told Heusmann that he wanted to talk to her. Defendant drove Heusmann home in his car. On the way to Heusmann’s house, defendant stopped and bought some beer. When they arrived at Heusmann’s house, she changed clothes. Heusmann and defendant watched a movie and each drank several beers in Heusmann’s living room. Heusmann told defendant to leave her house when the movie ended because she was tired.

Heusmann walked defendant out of her house to his car in the driveway. They talked in the driveway briefly, then Heusmann turned around and began to walk towards her house. Defendant grabbed Heusmann and told her that he wanted her so badly that he “could not stand it.” Defendant choked Heusmann until she lost consciousness. Heusmann regained consciousness in the trunk of defendant’s moving car. Heusmann knew that she was injured but did not know the extent of her injuries. When she woke up, Heusmann began hitting the bottom of the trunk lid. Heusmann passed out several more times, but each time that she awoke, she hit the trunk lid.

Defendant eventually stopped the car and opened the trunk to let Heusmann out. When Heusmann emerged from defendant’s car trunk, she saw blood all over her clothes and felt weak. Heusmann asked defendant to take her to the hospital. Defendant refused to take Heusmann to the hospital, saying he would get in trouble with the [106]*106law, unless she explained her injuries to the hospital staff according to his instructions. Defendant told her to tell the hospital staff that she had been attacked by an unknown person on the side of the road while defendant had gone to get gas for his car. Heusmann agreed, but once she was inside the hospital Heusmann told the staff that defendant had caused her injuries. Heusmann’s injuries were severe. Her right ear was “cut almost completely off.” She had numerous lacerations on her neck, contusions and swelling on her face, and a severe head injury. Defendant was arrested at the hospital.

The investigating detective photographed defendant’s car outside the hospital on the day of his arrest, but did not search the car until 4 August 1997 after he obtained a search warrant. When Detective Johnson searched defendant’s car, he found a pair of nine inch pliers with dried blood on them. In addition, the detective and crime scene investigator found a knife with dried blood on it in defendant’s trunk. The bottom of the trunk contained dried blood and numerous blood stains on the trunk’s floor and the spare tire. During their investigation on 3 August 1997 the officers also found blood droppings on Heusmann’s driveway and Heusmann’s eyeglasses in the grass beside her driveway.

Defendant testified that he went to Heusmann’s house where he drank beer and watched two movies with her. After the movies were finished, Heusmann asked him to take her riding. Defendant testified that he and Heusmann rode around Lumberton before his car ran out of gas around 3 a.m. Defendant left Heusmann with his car and walked to the nearest gas station to purchase gas. When defendant returned, Heusmann had been attacked. Defendant drove Heusmann to her house and eventually convinced her to let him take her to the hospital.

The jury found defendant guilty of all charges. Defendant was sentenced to consecutive terms of imprisonment of 100 to 129 months for the kidnapping charge, 100 to 129 months for the assault charge and 29 to 44 months for the maiming charge. Defendant appeals.

Defendant contends that the trial court should have granted his motion to dismiss the maiming charge. Defendant argues that the State is required to show proof that a victim’s ear has been completely severed from the body in order to sustain a conviction for maiming. In this case, since Heusmann’s ear was not completely removed, defendant argues that the State did not carry its burden of proof. We agree.

[107]*107Defendant bases his argument upon State v. Foy which applied the maiming statute, G.S. § 14-29. See State v. Foy, 130 N.C. App. 466, 603 S.E.2d 399, disc. rev. denied, 349 N.C. 234, 512 S.E.2d 756 (1998). G.S. § 14-29 reads as follows:

If any person shall, on purpose and unlawfully, but without malice aforethought, cut, or slit the nose, bite or cut off the nose, or a lip or an ear, or disable any limb or member of any other person, or castrate any other person, or cut off, maim or disfigure any of the privy members of any other person, with intent to kill, maim, disfigure, disable or render impotent such person, the person so offending shall be punished as a Class E felón.

G.S. § 14-29 (2001) (emphasis added). The Foy case involved an incarcerated defendant who attacked a deputy sheriff while in jail. Foy, 130 N.C. App. at 467-68, 503 S.E.2d at 399-400. During the scuffle between deputies and the defendant, the defendant bit one deputy’s ear. Id. at 468, 503 S.E.2d at 400. The defendant in Foy drew blood by biting the deputy’s ear and thirteen stitches were required to close the deputy’s wound, but “[t]here was no evidence that any part of [the deputy’s] ear was actually severed.” Id. at 468, 503 S.E.2d at 400. This Court, in analyzing the trial court’s application of the maiming statute, held that the language of G.S. § 14-29 “suggests that while cutting off a lip or an ear is proscribed conduct, merely cutting or slitting those body parts — without cutting or slitting them off — does not violate the statute.” Id. at 468-69, 503 S.E.2d at 400 (emphasis in original). The Foy court continued:

The trial court erred when it instructed the jury that it could find defendant guilty of violating section 14-29 if it determined that defendant had bitten Deputy Hartsell’s ear without biting it off in part or altogether. Defendant’s motion to dismiss the maiming charge should have been granted because the State’s evidence did not show that he bit off any part of Deputy Hartsell’s ear.

Id. at 469, 503 S.E.2d at 400.

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603 S.E.2d 583 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 2004)

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Bluebook (online)
587 S.E.2d 485, 161 N.C. App. 104, 2003 N.C. App. LEXIS 1999, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-scott-ncctapp-2003.