IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA
No. COA18-900
Filed: 4 June 2019
Iredell County, No. 17CRS51248
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
v.
KEVIN JAMES GAMBRELL, Defendant.
Appeal by Defendant from order entered 7 February 2018 by Judge Joseph
Crosswhite in Iredell County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 10 April
2019.
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Special Deputy Attorney General Sonya
Calloway-Durham, for the State.
Appellate Defender Glenn Gerding, by Assistant Appellate Defender Wyatt
Orsbon, for the Defendant.
DILLON, Judge.
Defendant Kevin James Gambrell appeals from an order requiring him to
submit to satellite-based monitoring (“SBM”) for the rest of his natural life.
I. Background
Defendant was charged with and pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties
with a child. Defendant was sentenced in the presumptive range. The State also
sought to have Defendant register as a sex-offender and to enroll in SBM. Defendant
motioned to dismiss the State’s petition for SBM and to declare such program
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unconstitutional. The trial court denied Defendant’s motion to dismiss and, in turn,
ordered him to submit to SBM for the rest of his natural life. Defendant timely
appealed.
II. Analysis
In his appeal, Defendant argues that the State’s SBM program is both
unreasonable as applied to him and facially unconstitutional. We review a trial
court’s determination that SBM is reasonable de novo. State v. Bare, 197 N.C. App.
461, 464, 677 S.E.2d 518, 522 (2009), disc. review denied, 364 N.C. 436, 702 S.E.2d
492 (2010). We also review alleged constitutional violations de novo. Piedmont Triad
Airport Auth. v. Urbine, 354 N.C. 336, 338, 554 S.E.2d 331, 332 (2001).
The United States Supreme Court has determined that the monitoring of an
individual under North Carolina’s SBM program constitutes a continuous
warrantless search of that individual. Grady v. North Carolina, ___ U.S. ___, ___,
135 S. Ct. 1368, 1371 (2015). That Court did not state that monitoring an individual
under the program was per se unconstitutional, recognizing that “the Fourth
Amendment prohibits only unreasonable searches.” Id. (emphasis in original).
Rather, that Court stated that whether the enrollment of a particular individual for
monitoring under the program constitutes a reasonable search “depends on the
totality of the circumstances, including the nature and purpose of the search and the
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extent to which the search intrudes upon reasonable privacy expectations.” Id.
(emphasis added).
The “totality of the circumstances” calculus includes whether the sexual
offender poses a threat to reoffend. The calculus also includes whether an SBM
search would be effective in furthering the State interest in deterring the offender
from reoffending. See State v. Bowditch, 364 N.C. 335, 351, 700 S.E.2d 1, 12 (2010)
(“The SBM program is concerned with protecting the public against recidivist
tendencies of convicted sex offenders.”).
In the present case, Defendant motioned to dismiss the State’s petition to
enroll him in SBM. A hearing was held on Defendant’s motion. At the hearing, the
only evidence presented by the State was testimony from a probation officer
regarding Defendant’s criminal record and the logistics and procedure of SBM,
namely that SBM would track the movement of Defendant. While Defendant’s status
as a recidivist was not disputed, Defendant argued that the State failed to meet its
burden to show that SBM was a reasonable method to reduce recidivism in his case.
Indeed, preventing recidivism among sex offenders is a government interest.
And while SBM is not 100% reliable to prevent recidivism, it certainly acts as a
deterrent to further criminal conduct. See Bowditch, 364 N.C. at 351, 700 S.E.2d at
12 (acknowledging that the SBM program does not prevent crime but does act as a
deterrent); Bare, 197 N.C. App. at 476, 677 S.E.2d at 519 (stating that “SBM could
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have a deterrent effect. Presumably, sex offenders would be less likely to repeat
offenses since they would be aware their location could be tracked and it would be
easier to catch them.”).
Thus, it could be argued that the probation officer’s testimony that SBM would
track the movements of Defendant constituted some evidence that Defendant would
be less likely to reoffend or to go where he should not go, since he would know that
his movements were being tracked. It follows that a trial judge, making a
reasonableness determination, may not need further evidence, such as empirical data
or expert testimony, in a particular case to conclude that SBM would be reasonable,
based on the totality of the circumstances. Indeed, we have found such deterrents,
like traffic checkpoints, reasonable without the aid of expert testimony, determining
that a checkpoint “deter[s] driver’s license violations” and that this “deterrence goal
was a reasonable one.” State v. Jarrett, 203 N.C. App. 675, 679-80, 692 S.E.2d 420,
425 (2010) (internal citations omitted).
However, our Court has recently held that to show the efficacy of SBM in
deterring recidivism, the State may never rely on an assumption that an offender
would be less likely to reoffend if he knew he was being watched: the State must
produce other evidence to show the efficacy of SBM in general, e.g., empirical studies
or expert testimony. See State v. Griffin, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___, 818 S.E.2d 336, 340-
42 (2018). In Griffin, the panel relied on the decision of our Court in Grady handed
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down after the matter had been remanded from the United States Supreme Court,
see State v. Grady, ___ N.C. App. ___, 817 S.E.2d 18 (2018), and on the reasoning of a
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion analyzing the constitutionality of an order
restricting the travel of a sex offender, see Doe v. Cooper, 842 F.3d 833, 846-47 (4th
Cir. 2016). While Griffin and some of its progeny are currently before our Supreme
Court, the mandates of those cases have not been stayed by that Court. We are,
therefore, compelled to continue following Griffin. Accordingly, we conclude that the
State failed to meet its burden of showing the reasonableness of the SBM program in
this case by failing to produce separate evidence concerning the efficacy of the SBM
program.
We note that Defendant also facially challenges the constitutionality of the
SBM program. However, as we have concluded that the order requiring Defendant
to submit to SBM was unreasonable as applied to him, we decline to address this
argument.
III. Conclusion
As the State failed to prove the reasonableness of the SBM program as applied
to Defendant, we reverse the order requiring him to submit to SBM for the remainder
of his natural life.
REVERSED.
Judges MURPHY and HAMPSON concur.
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