State v. Goins

244 N.C.App. 499

781 S.E.2d 45

STATE of North Carolina

v.Gary Scott GOINS.

No. COA15–184.

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Dec. 15, 2015.

Attorney General, Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General, Anne M. Middleton, for the State.

Parish & Cooke, Fayetteville, by James R. Parish, for Defendant.

McGEE, Chief Judge.

Gary Scott Goins ("Defendant") was convicted of committing numerous sex offenses against his students while serving as a teacher and wrestling coach at East Gaston High School ("East Gaston"). Defendant contends the trial court erred by: (1) denying Defendant's motion to dismiss one of his charges for insufficient evidence, (2) admitting evidence that Defendant utilized various "hazing" techniques against his student wrestlers, and (3) not allowing Defendant to introduce evidence of possible bias by one of the complainants. We find no error as to Defendant's first two challenges, and no prejudicial error as to the third.

I. Background

Defendant was a teacher and wrestling coach at East Gaston from August 1993 until June 2013. Defendant's employment with East Gaston ended after he was arrested and indicted for numerous sex offenses against three of his former wrestling students ("the complainants").

A. Allen's Testimony

Allen¹ testified at trial that he met Defendant in the mid–1990's at a wrestling tournament, when Allen was in eighth grade. Defendant invited Allen to start training with the East Gaston wrestling team the following school year. The practices were more intense than what Allen had been used to. The other wrestlers were "[b]igger guys, ... a lot more defined, [a] lot more mature." The wrestlers and Defendant also used "vulgar" language during practices, and the wrestlers would sometimes get "choked-out" in the locker room—by other wrestlers or Defendant—through the use of an "illegal" wrestling maneuver. After Defendant choked-out a wrestler, "[h]e would just laugh ... [and] kind of make a joke of it.... [It was] something that [you would see] fairly often in the wrestling room."

During the summer of 1997, Allen traveled with Defendant and the East Gaston wrestling team to a wrestling camp at Appalachian State University. The team stayed at a house near the university, and Allen was directed by Defendant to sleep in the same bed as Defendant. That night, Allen "woke up to [Defendant] grabbing [Allen's] hand, ... putting it on [Defendant's] penis[,]" and masturbating. Allen was fourteen or fifteen years old at the time and weighed one hundred ten pounds.

Allen joined the East Gaston wrestling team in the fall of 1997, at the beginning of tenth grade. Allen continued to go on many team trips with Defendant, which often involved students sharing a hotel room with Defendant. It became "routine" that Defendant "always [had Allen] sle[ep] in the same bed" as Defendant. Allen woke up to Defendant using Allen's hand to masturbate in the middle of the night "probably over a dozen times" on various trips.

Allen also testified about a trip to a tournament in Florida that he took with Defendant and three other wrestlers. One evening, Defendant and the two upperclassmen on the trip, Earl and Frank, went into a drug store. Allen and another underclassman, George, were directed to stay in the car. After Defendant and the upperclassmen returned to the car, they all went back to the hotel room where they were staying. Allen testified that, once they were inside the hotel room,

[Defendant] lock[ed] the door ... [and he said something] like, "All right here we go," and then he—we started to kind of fight around, rumble around and ... [George] and I[got] stripped down to our underwear. And then we found out what was in the bags. They dumped it all out on the bed; the mascara, the lipstick, eyeliner and the whole nine yards. [Defendant and the upperclassmen] commenced to decorating [us] like cheap hookers. They put lipstick on us, the eyeliner, eyelash[,] and then after they decorated us all up there, they started using the lipstick and the eyeliner to draw on us. They circled our nipples with the lipstick and then they started drawing rude comments all over our bodies.... [For instance, on George, they drew a] large arrow pointed down to his ass and then it said, ["]insert here["].... [W]e tried [to fight them off] but they were larger than us and after a while we just kind of gave in to just ease the pain and ... made it a game.

Defendant then directed Allen and George to "pose in provocative" positions, such as one of them "bent over on all fours ... [and the other] standing behind him" like they were having anal sex, while Defendant took pictures.

Frank, Earl, and George testified about this incident at trial, and their testimony largely corroborated Allen's testimony. According to Frank and Earl, they also wrote things like "I'm a faggot[,]" "I am gay[,]" "I suck dick [,]" and "I take it in the ass" on Allen's and George's bodies. Frank testified that Defendant kept the photos he took that evening in the top drawer of his filing cabinet at East Gaston. Frank further testified that initially he did not think the "gag" would end up being so "obscene" and that Defendant told Frank and Earl what to do throughout—including instructing them to force Allen and George into the provocative positions if they would not comply. Frank testified "[i]t was one of those things [that started off] ... feel[ing] like it was [just] a little bit [of] hazing[,] until [he] actually realized what[ ] was going on; what [he] just did to those kids." Frank also testified he was afraid that "the same thing would happen to [him,] or [he] would be beaten[,]" if he did not comply with Defendant's commands because Defendant regularly "frogged, ... punched, ... kneed[,] ... [or put in a] choke-hold" wrestlers who did not "do what he told [them] to do." Frank testified that the incident in Florida led, in part, to his quitting the team, giving up his title of team captain, and moving to another school to wrestle.

Regarding Defendant's general behavior on trips, Allen further testified that Defendant

was a big fan of ripping people's underwear off.... Most of the time [he did it] in our travel van.... He would pull over and jump from the driver's seat to the back, pick somebody out, club them down on the back of the head, force them down, grab their underwear and just rip them off as hard as he could....

[Other times, wrestlers] had to stand on the bed [in a hotel room] and [Defendant] was standing on the bed with us, behind us, and we were on the edge of the bed and he had our underwear and he was, like, okay, now jump. And we'd have to jump off of the bed and we were dangling off the bed with him holding our underwear and him trying to pull them up to rip them off.

Although Defendant "did [this] to everybody[,]" Allen stated that Defendant targeted "mostly the smaller" wrestlers for this kind of treatment.

Allen testified Defendant began coming to Allen's house in the summer of 1998 to conduct "mental training sessions." These sessions always occurred while Allen's parents were at work. Defendant would take Allen into Allen's bedroom, lock the door, light a candle, and tell Allen to lie on his bed. Defendant would then run Allen through various relaxation and visualization exercises. However, during one of these sessions, after Defendant told Allen to visualize finishing a rigorous work-out in his mind, Defendant directed Allen to stand, get completely naked, and pretend he was taking a shower, which Allen did. Defendant then told Allen to lie down on the bed, and Defendant began talking about a girl Allen had a crush on. Allen testified

[Defendant] talked about how I liked her and how I thought she was pretty and stuff like that. And then he had a wig that he put on, a blonde wig. And he kind of said that ["Y]ou thought [that girl] was pretty and she turns you on.... [Y]ou want to be with her, have sex with her[,"] and stuff like that [,] and he would kind of take the wig and drape it across my body to kind of tickle me all the way down. And then after that, I was still naked at the time, and he performed oral sex on me while he was wearing the wig. And it was tickling me and he just continued the oral sex.

During another mental training session, Defendant told Allen to visualize that he was in "a car that was traveling ... in a race."

[Defendant said] I had to pump [my hand] to cross the finish line, to be first. And somewhere along the way [Defendant] pulled out his penis and put it in my hand to where I had to pump [Defendant's] penis ... to make the car to go faster[.] ... I had to pump to cross the finish line.... [Defendant then] ejaculated ... in the cup of his hand. He said, ["N]ow, you've finished the race and you are tired and you are thirsty[,"] and he said, ["Y]ou need some water.["] And he ... made me drink ... his semen.

During another mental training session, Defendant instructed Allen to "act [ ] like [Defendant's penis] was an ice cream cone and that it was hot outside and that it was melting[,] and [Allen] need[ed] to try to lick the ice cream before it melted all the way off." Allen testified about a similar instance of sexual contact that occurred during a team trip to Fargo, North Dakota. Allen testified he did not report these instances because he was "scared [,] ... didn't know who would believe [him]," and was worried about what people would say if they found out. Allen also "loved wrestling," was trying to earn a scholarship, and was concerned that reporting Defendant would negatively impact his wrestling career.

B. Brad's Testimony

Brad, Allen's younger brother, testified he wrestled at East Gaston from 2000 to 2004, but he began training with Defendant in 1997. At the time, Brad was eleven years old, and he weighed around sixty pounds. He also began traveling with the team to tournaments. Brad testified these trips were

no-holds-barred.... [P]hysical abuse became okay whether it was the older wrestlers beating the

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