State v. Wooten

286 S.E.2d 635, 55 N.C. App. 530, 1982 N.C. App. LEXIS 2228
CourtCourt of Appeals of North Carolina
DecidedFebruary 2, 1982
DocketNo. 818SC798
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 286 S.E.2d 635 (State v. Wooten) 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. Wooten, 286 S.E.2d 635, 55 N.C. App. 530, 1982 N.C. App. LEXIS 2228 (N.C. Ct. App. 1982).

Opinion

HEDRICK, Judge.

Defendant first assigns error to the court’s pretrial comments concerning the charges against him. The record shows that the trial court erroneously stated to the jury pool that the defendant was charged with the three drug counts because of events occurring on 25 September 1980. After members of the jury were selected and impaneled, the court corrected its error by the following statement:

I inadvertently used the wrong date when I was giving you my little synopsis of the case. The court now understands that the date that you are concerned with is the 12th of September. . . .
Just disregard what I said about the other date.

Defendant contends that the error “placed in the jurors [sic] minds a conjecture that the Defendant might be involved in other drug possessions or sales. . . ,” thus depriving defendant of a fair trial.

[533]*533We reject defendant’s contention. We can find absolutely nothing in the trial court’s comments which amounted to more than an inadvertent and harmless lapsus linguae and an equally harmless attempt to correct it. Defendant’s assignment of error is overruled.

The second of defendant’s contentions is that the trial court committed eight separate errors in rulings on the admissibility of evidence. Defendant first took exception to testimony by which the S.B.I. agent showed his experience in other undercover campaigns. While we find the evidence to which defendant excepted to be irrelevant to his case, we nonetheless can see no error which was prejudicial to defendant. See 1 Stansbury’s N.C. Evidence §§ 9, 80 (Brandis rev. 1973).

Defendant’s second exception to the admission of evidence involved the following direct examination of Agent Bowden:

Q. What happened at that point?
A. Mr. Wooten told me that —
OBJECTION: OVERRULED.
Exception No. 6
A. Mr. Wooten told me that he had some bam for sale; however, he could not get his hands on it at that time but he did say that he had heroin for sale.
Motion To Strike. Denied.
Exception No. 7

Defendant contends that the statements made by defendant to Agent Bowden resulted from his being entrapped and should have been inadmissible. We, however, find no evidence in this or any other part of the record to support defendant’s contention of entrapment.

The third of defendant’s exceptions to the admission of evidence followed the court’s overruling defendant’s objection to a question concerning whether Bowden had “received anything back from the State Bureau of Investigation Laboratory . . . .” The State’s question followed and was tied to its questions about sending the substance to the S.B.I. Laboratory for tests. Limited [534]*534as it was, the question was not, as defendant argues, “too broad and vague.”

Next defendant excepted to Agent Bowden’s testimony concerning his statements to the two police officers and to the other S.B.I. agent about the events which occurred in the apartment. Defendant contends that this reiteration of matters to which Bowden had already testified prejudiced his case unnecessarily. While we might agree with defendant that Bowden’s reiteration was unnecessary, we can find no prejudicial error in his testimony. Likewise, we reject defendant’s related contention that the following testimony of Agent Bowden exculpated the defendant from any wrongdoing:

I told them the details of the purchase; that I went to the apartment at 130 Rockefeller Court in Westhaven and there saw Brenda Allen and Dennis Wooten and in talking to Mr. Wooten agreed on a price of twenty-eight dollars for two aluminum foil packets of heroin and Mrs. Allen delivered those packets to me.

As our later discussion will show, there was clearly ample evidence indicating that defendant made the sale to Bowden.

Defendant’s fifth exception to the admission of evidence was to the testimony by the second S.B.I. agent about what Agent Bowden had told him concerning the purchase of heroin. We find this testimony to be corroborative of the testimony of Agent Bowden, and its admission was no error. See 1 Stansbury’s N.C. Evidence § 51 (Brandis rev. 1973).

Defendant’s sixth argument concerns the trial court’s refusal to allow him to question a Goldsboro Police Department Investigator about how the police department gets witnesses into court. The questions thus posed were obviously rhetorical since the witness had already stated that he had not had a particular witness subpoenaed. This Court sees no purpose in the questions defendant posed and finds the trial court’s action proper.

Defendant’s argument that the trial court failed to instruct the jury adequately about corroborating evidence is likewise rejected. The record shows that the court instructed the jury in the following manner:

[535]*535Members of the jury, this evidence which you are about to hear is competent but only for a limited purpose. Statements that a witness may have made at an earlier time, if you find that they tend to corroborate his testimony here in the courtroom under oath are competent for the purpose of corroboration; that is giving you a basis upon which to decide whether to believe the testimony of Mr. Bowden in this courtroom. They are not evidence of the truth or lack of truth of what was said because what was being told back there was not under oath as was his testimony here.

The fact that the court later shortened its explanation of corroborative evidence was not error prejudicial to defendant.

Defendant’s final argument concerning the admissibility of evidence is that the court erred in allowing the forensic chemist to identify the material purchased by Bowden. We have reviewed this portion of the record and can find no error. The chemist testified about the various tests that had been conducted to determine the identity of the powder. The trial court properly overruled defendant’s objection to the question of whether the witness had an opinion satisfactory to himself as to what the substance was. Likewise, we reject defendant’s argument that the court erred in allowing the State to pass to the jury the contraband substance.

We turn now to defendant’s contentions that the trial court erred in denying his motions to dismiss the cases against him. These motions were made at the end of the State’s evidence as well as at the end of all the evidence. When the defendant offered evidence, he waived his motion to dismiss at the close of the State’s evidence, and only his motion made at the close of all of the evidence is considered on appeal. State v. Mendez, 42 N.C. App. 141, 256 S.E. 2d 405 (1979). Defendant argues that the “case . . . was fraught with too many inconsistencies,” particularly on the question of whether it was the defendant or Brenda Allen who actually sold the controlled substance to Bowden.

In considering a motion to dismiss, the trial court is bound by the principle that the evidence for the State is to be considered in the light most favorable to it and is deemed to be true; inconsistencies or contradictions therein are disregarded. State v. Price, 280 N.C. 154, 184 S.E. 2d 866 (1971).

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Bluebook (online)
286 S.E.2d 635, 55 N.C. App. 530, 1982 N.C. App. LEXIS 2228, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-wooten-ncctapp-1982.