State v. Byers

375 N.C. 386

847 S.E.2d 735

STATE of North Carolina

v.Terraine Sanchez BYERS

No. 69A06-4

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Filed September 25, 2020

Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Joseph L. Hyde, Assistant Attorney General, for the State-appellant.

Glenn Gerding, Appellate Defender, by Wyatt Orsbon, Assistant Appellate Defender, for defendant-appellee.

MORGAN, Justice.

This matter mandates our consideration of the requirements which a pro se defendant who seeks postconviction testing of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) evidence derived from biological material must fulfill in order to qualify for appointed counsel to assist such a defendant in an effort to obtain this type of scientific evaluation as provided in section 15A-269 of the General Statutes of North Carolina. While this Court has previously addressed the burden that a defendant must satisfy in order to obtain DNA testing after being found guilty of criminal activity, this case presents to us an issue of first impression with regard to the standard which a defendant must meet for the appointment of an attorney by a trial court under N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 to aid in the defendant's efforts to obtain the postconviction DNA testing. In undertaking the inquiry here, we conclude that defendant Terraine Sanchez Byers has failed to fulfill the requirements which the identified statute has established. Accordingly, this Court reverses the decision rendered below by the Court of Appeals.

I. The Trial Phase

Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder and first-degree burglary on 3 March 2004. These convictions arose from the 22 November 2001 stabbing death of Shanvell Burke, a person with whom defendant had a romantic relationship before Burke ended it. On that autumnal night in Charlotte, North Carolina, Burke was in her apartment watching television with an individual named Reginald Williams. Williams testified at trial that he and Burke heard a loud crash at the back door of the apartment. When Burke went to see what had caused the sound, Williams heard her yell "Terraine, stop." This development prompted Williams to leave the apartment immediately and to find someone to contact law enforcement for assistance. Williams explained in his testimony that he fled from Burke's residence because she had allowed him to hear a recorded telephone message that defendant had left for Burke in which defendant said that "when he found out who [was dating Burke], he was gonna kill them." Williams also related at trial that Burke had told him that "she was afraid [defendant] was going to do something to hurt her bad." Evidence presented at trial tended to show that local law enforcement officers were already familiar with Burke's home because after she had terminated her romantic relationship with defendant, Burke had called upon law enforcement for help on multiple occasions due to her fear of defendant. On one such occasion, Burke reported that defendant had struck her in the face and on her head while stating that he was going to kill her, and then defendant brandished a knife toward Burke's aunt, who was also present. Another emergency call by Burke to law enforcement involved her account that defendant had thrown bricks at Burke's apartment window.

In response to the emergency call to law enforcement in light of the circumstances which were occurring on 22 November 2001, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department arrived at Burke's apartment to discover defendant leaving the apartment through a broken window of the door. Defendant, who was described by officers as nervous and profusely sweating, told the officers that Burke was inside her home and had been injured. Defendant attempted to flee, but officers quickly apprehended and arrested him. Defendant had a deep laceration on his left hand.

Upon entering Burke's apartment, officers discovered her body lying in a pool of blood. Burke was already deceased due to the infliction of eleven stab wounds which she had suffered. A knife handle with a broken blade was recovered by investigating officers. One of the officers who responded to the 22 November 2001 emergency call identified Burke based upon his response to an emergency call at her residence eleven days earlier. On a prior date, Burke had reported to the officer that defendant had returned to Burke's apartment to harass her immediately after being released from custody on a domestic violence charge. Several days later, the same officer responded to another call at Burke's apartment at which time Burke again reported harassment by defendant, who Burke said she feared was going to physically assault her.

During the investigation of Burke's death, fingernail scrapings from defendant's hands, a bloodstain from a cushion on Burke's couch, a swab from the handle and a swab from the blade of the broken knife found inside Burke's apartment on the night of 22 November 2001, and various other bloodstains throughout the apartment were analyzed by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Crime Laboratory. The DNA obtained from these sources matched either defendant, Burke, or both of them. Additionally, one of Burke's neighbors testified that she saw defendant near Burke's apartment about 8:00 p.m. on the night that Burke was killed.

Defendant stipulated during trial that the blood found on the shirt that he was wearing at the time of his arrest was Burke's. Defendant offered no evidence at trial. Upon being found guilty by a jury of the offenses of first-degree murder and first-degree burglary, defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for the murder conviction and a term of 77–102 months in prison for the burglary conviction, which would be served consecutive to the life imprisonment for murder. Upon defendant's appeal, the Court of Appeals upheld the judgments entered upon defendant's convictions and denied defendant's post-trial pro se motion for appropriate relief. See State v. Byers (Byers I ), 175 N.C. App. 280, 623 S.E.2d 357, disc. rev. denied , 360 N.C. 485, 631 S.E.2d 135 (2006).

II. Defendant's Request for Postconviction DNA Testing

On 31 July 2017, defendant filed a pro se motion in the trial court for postconviction DNA testing pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 in which he asserted that: (1) defendant was on the other side of town waiting for a bus at the time that the attack on Burke occurred; (2) one of the State's witnesses at trial testified that she saw defendant getting on the 9:00 p.m. city bus on the night that Burke was killed; (3) a private investigator swore in an affidavit that defendant could not have arrived at Burke's apartment prior to the 22 November 2001 emergency call; (4) defendant had gone to Burke's apartment on the night of her death, and when he arrived, defendant noticed that the back door was "smashed in"; (5) defendant went inside Burke's apartment to investigate; and (6) defendant was then attacked by a man in a plaid jacket who escaped from the apartment before police officers arrived. In his motion, defendant stated that his struggle with the man in the plaid jacket would explain the presence of defendant's DNA throughout Burke's apartment and asserted that DNA testing of defendant's and Burke's previously untested clothing could reveal the identity of the actual perpetrator, noting that the State's DNA expert witness had reported, but not testified to, the presence of human blood in various locations in Burke's apartment that did not match the blood of either defendant or Burke. Defendant requested that the items of clothing be preserved and that an inventory of the evidence be prepared. Defendant also asked for the appointment of counsel to assist defendant in his postconviction DNA-testing process pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(c).

Section 15A-269 of the General Statutes of North Carolina provides, in pertinent part, the following:

(a) A defendant may make a motion before the trial court that entered the judgment of conviction against the defendant for performance of DNA testing ... if the biological evidence meets all of the following conditions:

(1) Is material to the defendant's defense.

(2) Is related to the investigation or prosecution that resulted in the judgment.

(3) Meets either of the following conditions:

a. It was not DNA tested previously. b. It was tested previously, but the requested DNA test would provide results that are significantly more accurate and probative of the identity of the perpetrator or accomplice or have a reasonable probability of contradicting prior test results.

(b) The court shall grant the motion for DNA testing ... upon its determination that:

(1) The conditions set forth in subdivisions (1), (2), and (3) of subsection (a) of this section have been met;

(2) If the DNA testing being requested had been conducted on the evidence, there exists a reasonable probability that the verdict would have been more favorable to the defendant; and

(3) The defendant has signed a sworn affidavit of innocence.

....

(c) ... [T]he court shall appoint counsel for the person who brings a motion under this section if that person is indigent. If the petitioner has filed pro se, the court shall appoint counsel for the petitioner ... upon a showing that the DNA testing may be material to the petitioner's claim of wrongful conviction.

N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(a), (b), (c) (2019).

On 3 August 2017, the Superior Court, Mecklenburg County, entered an order denying defendant's motion for postconviction DNA testing on the grounds that "the evidence of his guilt is overwhelming" and that defendant has "failed to show how conducting additional DNA testing is material to his defense." Defendant appealed the trial court's order denying his motion to the Court of Appeals.

III. The Court of Appeals Decision

In the Court of Appeals, defendant argued that the trial court erred by denying his motion (1) before "obtaining and reviewing the statutorily required inventory of evidence" sought to be tested and (2) before appointing counsel to...