State v. Young

903 S.E.2d 460

STATE of North Carolina

v.Diego Leander YOUNG

No. COA23-608

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Filed June 18, 2024

Appeal by Defendant from judgment entered 16 December 2022 by Judge Karen Eady-Williams in Mecklenburg County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 24 January 2024. Mecklenburg County, Nos. 20 CRS 212297, 21 CRS 8901

Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Special Deputy Attorney General Gary Adam Moyers, for the State.

Irons & Irons, P.A., by Ben G. Irons, II, for Defendant.

WOOD, Judge.

On 16 December 2022, a jury convicted Diego Young ("Defendant") of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Defendant appeals, arguing the trial court erred in denying defense counsel’s request for a special instruction, allowing Troy Walker ("Walker") to testify regarding a pretrial identification of Defendant, and failing to intervene ex mero motu during the prosecutor’s closing argument. For the reasons stated herein, we hold the trial court committed no prejudicial error.

I. Factual and Procedural History

On the evening of 21 February 2020, Walker was preparing to leave his apartment in ‘Charlotte, North Carolina to play pool with a friend. While Walker was sitting on the edge of his bed watching TV, he heard a loud crash and saw a black man holding a shotgun and standing at the door. The intruder wore a black baseball cap with the brim pushed down low and a bandana mask over his nose and chin and stretching around his ears.

Walker could see the intruder’s eyes, the top part of his nose, his brow, and part of his cheeks, The intruder shouted commands such as "stay there, don’t move," until he came closer to Walker and made more specific demands, asking where money and jewelry were located. Walker complied with the intrader’s commands, handing over his wife’s jewelry box, his wedding ring, and his Cuban chain necklace.

Walker stated, "you don’t have to kill me" because the intruder was pointing the shotgun at his chest and face. Walker felt strange about this home invasion because where he is from, "these guys, they come in, they take what they want, and leave." Walker was "really concerned" about the intrader and was studying his facial features, mannerisms, body language, and voice to see who he was dealing with and, in case he survived, so that he could do a lineup and recognize the intruder. Walker noticed the intruder’s eyes were distinct because they were "really dark, kind of like he wear[s] eyeliner or mascara." The intruder forced Walker to request money from a friend on Cash App, so Walker called the friend with whom he was going to meet to play pool. However, the friend told Walker just to come out and play pool and that he could give him money then. The intruder became frustrated and told Walker to hang up. He was close enough to Walker to nudge the phone out of his hand.

The intruder told Walker to turn around, get on his knees, and put his hands behind his head. Walker initially thought this would be the last day of his life, but "something else kicked in," and he decided to take action. Walker stood up from the bed, came face-to-face with the intruder, and then lunged, grabbed the gun, pulled it toward him, and elbowed the intruder in the chin. The intruder fell and fired the shotgun, shooting Walker in the arm and stomach. Although injured, Walker struggled for the gun and wrestled it away from the intruder, who then ran out of the apartment.

Using the shotgun as a cane to stand up, Walker attempted to chase after the intruder but became weak, so he knocked on a neighbor’s door for assistance. Having heard the commotion, a different neighbor had called the police. The Charlotte Fire Department treated Walker’s injuries on the sidewalk. Responding officers recovered the shotgun from Walker's front porch. Walker was transported to a hospital where he was treated and hospitalized for seven days. Walker testified that due to the gunshot injuries, his kidneys and lungs collapsed, and he had to have a portion of his intestines removed, and his arm is now numb. After his discharge, he had to return to the hospital for another seven or eight days because his body was shutting down.

Detective Luke Amos ("Detective Amos"), the lead investigator in the case, identified the owner of the shotgun as Alshonda Robinson ("Robinson"). Detective Amos spoke with Robinson at her home and learned that she had a relationship with Defendant. According to Detective Amos, Robinson described the nature of her relationship with Defendant as "somewhat confusing." Specifically, he testified at trial, "There may or may not have been some kind of romantic relationship involved, but they were, at minimum, friends."

Detective Amos also investigated the vehicle reported to be involved in the home invasion, a silver Honda. He became aware of the suspect vehicle due to a "BOLO" ("be on the lookout") bulletin that was sent out to officers after the crime occurred. Detective Amos testified he noticed a silver Honda Accord at Robinson’s address while he spoke with her at her home.

Subsequent to the home invasion, Walker attempted to search online to determine if the intruder had been arrested. Approximately a week and a half or two weeks after the home invasion, an officer told Walker that Defendant had been arrested and provided Walker with Defendant’s name. Walker did not recall exactly which officer gave him Defendant’s name, but he believed it. was Detective Amos. Walker was told by law enforcement that viewing a photo lineup would not be in his best interest because:

it can work against you if you go and pick somebody without seeing their face clear[ly] and it’s not them …. So we didn’t do the lineup or the mugshot at that point because of that because they said it wouldn’t be smart, it wouldn’t help thecase, the situation, if I went and saw a mugshot and didn’t pick out anyone or if I did pick out the wrong one. So I just excluded the option of a mugshot.

Detective Amos believed he was the one who told Walker that a suspect was arrested, although he did not recall giving Defendant’s name to Walker. At trial, he testified why a photo lineup was not conducted in this case:

Because of the description that was given by [Walker], a hat pulled low and a mask across the face, that’s not something that would be viable for us in this situation.

…

It would not be practical. It would - most people, no matter who they are, are not going to be able to pick out just a set of eyes, which is what basically is what he saw during this incident.

…

I say "most," I would say almost no one unless it was a person that they already knew, and if they already knew that person, there would be no purpose for a photo lineup.

After being told Defendant’s name, Walker searched the name online, found Defendant’s picture, and was "100 percent" certain the picture of Defendant portrayed the man who had broken into his apartment. Walker focused on Defendant’s eyes and was sure they belonged to the man who broke into his home. However, prior to a detective giving Walker Defendant’s name, Walker never told law enforcement that he would be able to identify Defendant by his eyes.

On 25 September 2020, Walker attended Defendant’s bond hearing. According to Walker, he immediately recognized Defendant as the intruder even though Defendant wore a mask in the courtroom due to the implementation of COVID-19 procedures. Walker told the prosecutor at the hearing that he recognized Defendant as the person who had invaded his home with a shotgun. The prosecutor, in turn, had Walker provide a statement detailing Walker’s identification of Defendant. The statement noted Walker was present at the bond hearing and stated:

Unsolicited from … myself, Mr. Walker commented that when he saw the defendant come into the courtroom they locked eyes and he knew 100% that it was the individual that assaulted him with a shotgun and attacked him. He went on to explain that although the attacker had a mask covering part of his face that night, he could see his eyes and the features around his eyes and during their struggle got a good opportunity to see that part of his face. He was clear that he was 100% sure that the defendant was the person who attacked him that night. The Defendant had also spoken in the courtroom when asked by the Judge questions regarding counsel and Mr. Walker also indicated he had heard the defendant’s voice and recognized that voice to be the same voice of his attacker.

On 6 April 2020, a warrant was issued for Defendant’s arrest for possession of a firearm by a felon in violation of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-415.1. On 15 June 2020, a grand jury indicted Defendant on the same offense. On 14 June 2021, Defendant was separately indicted for attaining habitual felon status pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-7.1. Defendant was also indicted on the charges of first-degree burglary, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury.¹

Defendant’s case came on for trial at the 12 December 2022 criminal session of Mecklenburg County Superior Court. At trial, William Trantham ("Trantham"), a latent fingerprint examiner at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department’s crime laboratory, was tendered as an expert in the field of fingerprint analysis without objection. Trantham testified that a latent print is one that is hidden and needs processing to become visible to the human eye. Trantham testified he discovered a latent palm print on the shotgun recovered at Walker’s apartment. The palm print was an "AFIS value print," meaning the print "contains sufficient quality and quantity of ridge features that allow it to be searched through" the AFIS ("Automated Fingerprint Identification System") database. Trantham searched the print through the AFIS database, and it returned the top five potential donors, or sources, of the print. Upon closer analysis of the palm print and Defendant’s exemplar print, Trantham...