An unpublished opinion of the North Carolina Court of Appeals does not constitute
controlling legal authority. Citation is disfavored, but may be permitted in accordance
with the provisions of Rule 30(e)(3) of the North Carolina Rules of Appellate Procedure.
NO. COA14-10
NORTH CAROLINA COURT OF APPEALS
Filed: 2 September 2014
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
v. Cabarrus County
Nos. 09 CRS 53217; 10 CRS 902
ERIC CORENZO MOODY
On writ of certiorari to review judgment entered 6 January
2011 by Judge W. Erwin Spainhour in Cabarrus County Superior
Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 7 May 2014.
Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General
Kimberly N. Callahan, for the State.
Marilyn G. Ozer, for defendant-appellant.
CALABRIA, Judge.
We have granted Eric Corenzo Moody’s (“defendant”) petition
for writ of certiorari to review a judgment entered upon a jury
verdict finding him guilty of possession of cocaine, possession
of drug paraphernalia, and resisting, delaying, or obstructing a
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public officer (“RDO”), that includes his plea of guilty to
attaining the status of an habitual felon. We find no error.
I. Background
On 26 September 2009, Officers Dustin Wilhoite (“Officer
Wilhoite”) and Justin Benson (“Officer Benson”) of the Concord
Police Department (“CPD”) initiated a traffic stop of a vehicle
with a broken taillight. Defendant was a passenger in the back
seat of the vehicle. Officer Wilhoite approached the vehicle,
requested the driver’s license and registration, and asked her
to step out of the vehicle. The driver complied and gave the
officer consent to search the vehicle. Officer Wilhoite
determined that the driver had an outstanding warrant for
failure to appear and placed her under arrest.
While Officer Wilhoite was investigating the driver,
Officer Benson approached the passenger side of the vehicle to
speak with defendant and another passenger. He then requested
and received both passengers’ identifications. Officer Benson
determined that neither passenger had any outstanding warrants.
However, for safety reasons, he asked both passengers to exit
the vehicle and also asked if they had any weapons. Defendant
told Officer Benson that he had a knife and reached into his
pocket to retrieve it. Officer Benson grabbed defendant’s wrist
to prevent him from taking the knife out of his pocket.
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Defendant then attempted to flee the scene. CPD Officer
Paul Kluttz (“Officer Kluttz”), who had recently arrived to
assist the other officers, pursued defendant along with Officer
Benson. Shortly thereafter, defendant tripped and was
apprehended by Officer Kluttz. Officer Benson searched
defendant and found a pocket knife, a baggie containing three
crack rocks, and a crack pipe in his pockets.
Defendant was arrested and indicted for felony possession
of cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia, and misdemeanor
resisting a public officer. Later, he was indicted for
attaining the status of an habitual felon. Beginning 3 January
2011, defendant was tried by a jury in Cabarrus County Superior
Court. At trial, defendant testified on his own behalf.
Defendant claimed that the pants he was wearing at the time of
his arrest belonged to his brother. Defendant asserted that he
did not know that the pants contained crack cocaine or drug
paraphernalia. He explained that he was a drug addict and that
he would have immediately used the drugs if he knew they
existed.
During cross-examination, the State asked defendant whether
he knew that his brother had been in jail on pending murder
charges since 29 November 2008. The court intervened sua
sponte, sustained an objection to the question and ordered
defendant’s response to the question to be stricken. The State
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continued its line of questioning to emphasize that defendant’s
brother did not have access to the pants after 29 November 2008,
but did not mention the pending murder charges again.
On 6 January 2011, the jury returned a verdict finding
defendant guilty of the offenses of felony possession of
cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia, and resisting a
public officer. After the verdict, defendant pled guilty to
attaining the status of an habitual felon. The trial court
sentenced defendant to a minimum of 90 and a maximum of 117
months in the North Carolina Department of Correction. On 30
May 2013, defendant filed a petition for writ of certiorari with
this Court to review the trial court’s judgment. The petition
was granted on 13 June 2013.
II. Evidence of Murder Charge
Defendant argues that the trial court erred by failing to
issue a sufficient curative instruction to the jury after the
State improperly questioned defendant regarding his brother’s
incarceration due to pending murder charges. We disagree.
The law presumes that jurors will follow the court’s
instructions. State v. Tirado, 358 N.C. 551, 581, 599 S.E.2d
515, 535 (2004). Thus, “[i]t is well-settled that where the
trial court withdraws incompetent evidence and instructs the
jury not to consider that evidence, any prejudice is ordinarily
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cured.” State v. Davis, 130 N.C. App. 675, 679, 505 S.E.2d 138,
141 (1998).
In the instant case, defendant testified that he shared
clothes with his brother and that on the night of his arrest, he
grabbed a pair of pants from the closet that ultimately belonged
to that brother. Defendant claimed that because he did not own
the pants, he was not aware that there were drugs in the pocket.
In order to rebut defendant’s claims, the State attempted to
introduce evidence that defendant’s brother had no access to the
pants for almost a year prior to defendant’s arrest because he
was incarcerated due to pending murder charges.
[The State]: Now, you know that your
brother, Ernest Lamont Moody, has been
locked up in the back here on murder charges
since November 29th of 2008.
[Defendant]: Correct.
The Court: Objection sustained; objection
sustained. Strike that Ladies and Gentlemen.
Defendant first contends that the State’s question was so
grossly prejudicial that it could not be cured, even by an
appropriate curative instruction. See State v. Sanderson, 336
N.C. 1, 19, 442 S.E.2d 33, 43 (1994). Defendant cites Sanderson
and State v. Aycoth, 270 N.C. 270, 273, 154 S.E.2d 59, 61
(1967), in support of his argument. However, both Sanderson and
Aycoth are distinguishable from the instant case.
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In Sanderson, the prosecutor twice insinuated that the
defendant had been investigated in another murder. 336 N.C. at
17, 442 S.E.2d at 42-43. The trial court sustained objections to
the prosecutor’s statements and gave the jury curative
instructions. Id. Our Supreme Court found the curative
instructions to be insufficient, reasoning that “[t]he jury
being left with a plausible suggestion that defendant had
committed at least one other murder and a mild instruction from
the judge not to consider it as such, it may well have accepted
the prosecutor's suggestion and been influenced by it in its
sentencing determination.” Id. at 18, 442 S.E.2d at 43.
In Aycoth, a witness mentioned during his testimony that
the defendant had previously been indicted for murder. 270 N.C.
at 272, 154 S.E.2d at 60. The trial court sustained defense
counsel’s objection, granted a motion to strike, and instructed
the jury not to consider the evidence. Id. Our Supreme Court
held that “the court's instruction did not remove from the minds
of the jurors the prejudicial effect of the knowledge they had
acquired . . . that Aycoth had been or was under indictment for
murder,” and ordered a new trial. Id. at 273, 154 S.E.2d at 61.
The instant case is materially different from Sanderson and
Aycoth. Those cases concern the prejudicial effect of
inadmissible evidence of other charges against the defendant who
is on trial. In this case, evidence that defendant’s brother was
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charged with murder simply does not create the same type of
prejudice. The fact that defendant’s brother had other pending
charges does not suggest that defendant was more likely to have
committed the current offenses. This argument is overruled.
Defendant next argues that if a curative instruction was
appropriate, the trial court was required to give a more
definitive curative instruction than “strike that.” In support
of this argument, defendant notes that in previous cases, this
Court “has approved language that tells the jury in ‘firm and
unequivocal terms’ to disregard the inadmissible testimony.”
State v. Hamilton, 53 N.C. App. 740, 745, 281 S.E.2d 680, 684
(1981). However, defendant fails to adequately explain why the
trial court’s admonition to the jury to disregard the State’s
question and defendant’s answer immediately after the question
was asked and answered was not sufficiently firm and
unequivocal. The trial court had previously instructed the jury
that “[i]f the Court grants a motion to strike all or part of
the answer of a witness to a question, you must disregard and
not consider that evidence which has been ordered stricken.” [T
p 36] Thus, the jury clearly would have understood that when
the trial court ordered the State’s improper question and
defendant’s answer to be stricken, they were to disregard the
question and answer and “any prejudice [was] . . . cured.”
Davis, 130 N.C. App. at 679, 505 S.E.2d at 141. Since the trial
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court’s instruction to the jury cured any prejudice from the
State’s question, there was no error, plain or otherwise, in the
court’s handling of the improper question. This argument is
overruled.
III. Motion to Suppress
Defendant argues that the trial court erred by denying his
motion to suppress evidence seized as a result of an unlawful
extension of the traffic stop. We disagree.
A motion to suppress evidence is the “exclusive method of
challenging the admissibility of evidence upon grounds specified
in N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-974.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-979 (2013).
A motion to suppress must be made prior to trial unless the
defendant did not have a reasonable opportunity to make the
motion pretrial or a specific exception applies that allows the
defendant to make the motion during the trial. N.C. Gen. Stat.
§ 15A-975 (2013). “A defendant’s failure to comply with the
requirements of the statute acts as a waiver of his right to
suppress evidence in violation of statutory or constitutional
law.” State v. Byers, 105 N.C. App. 377, 381, 413 S.E.2d 586,
588 (1992) (citing State v. Holloway, 311 N.C. 573, 319 S.E.2d
261 (1984)).
In the instant case, defendant failed to file a written
pretrial motion to suppress the evidence. Instead, midway
through the trial, defense counsel made an oral motion to
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suppress. The trial court overruled the motion and said that
defendant waived his objection by failing to follow proper
procedure. Defendant failed to argue that any of the exceptions
in § 15A-975 applied in this case excusing a pretrial motion.
Defendant’s only argument was that the evidence should be
suppressed “in the interests of justice.” Since defendant
failed to comply with the procedural requirements of a motion to
suppress, the trial court did not err in denying his motion.
Nonetheless, defendant asserts that the admission of the
evidence constituted plain error. Plain error is an error “‘so
basic, so prejudicial, so lacking in its elements that justice
cannot have been done[.]’” State v. Odom, 307 N.C. 655, 660, 300
S.E.2d 375, 378 (1983) (quoting United States v. McCaskill, 676
F.2d 995, 1002 (4th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1018, 74
L. Ed. 2d 513 (1982)). “Under the plain error rule, defendant
must convince this Court not only that there was error, but that
absent the error, the jury probably would have reached a
different result.” State v. Jordan, 333 N.C. 431, 440, 426
S.E.2d 692, 697 (1993).
This Court has held that “[w]hen there are reasonable
grounds to order an occupant out of the car, then he may be
subjected to a limited search for weapons when the facts
available to the officer justify the belief that such an action
is appropriate.” State v. Adkerson, 90 N.C. App. 333, 338, 368
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S.E.2d 434, 437 (1988). In Adkerson, this Court held that a
limited search of a passenger was justified due to the fact that
it was late, in a rural area, and the officer’s position was
vulnerable. Id. at 339, 368 S.E.2d at 437.
In the instant case, Officers Wilhoite and Benson testified
that the traffic stop took place at approximately 1:00 a.m. in a
high-crime area where it was “relatively dark.” At that time,
there were three individuals in the vehicle but only two
officers were present at the beginning of the stop. Under these
circumstances, Officer Benson was justified ordering defendant
to exit the vehicle and conducting a limited search for weapons.
See id. Defendant then admitted to Officer Benson that he had a
knife, further justifying a search of his person. Defendant has
failed to meet his burden of demonstrating plain error. This
argument is overruled.
IV. Conclusion
The trial court’s instruction to the jury to disregard the
State’s question regarding defendant’s brother’s pending murder
charge was sufficient to cure any prejudice that resulted from
that question. Defendant failed to comply with the statutory
requirements for filing a pretrial motion to suppress or for
making a motion to suppress during the trial. In addition,
defendant did not meet his burden of showing that the admission
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of evidence obtained from the extended traffic stop was plain
error. Defendant received a fair trial, free from error.
No error.
Judges BRYANT and GEER concur.
Report per Rule 30(e).