establishing that the right of a capital defendant to be present at all stages of his trial is guaranteed by Article I, section 23 of the Constitution of North Carolina, but holding that the harmless error standard applicable to errors under the Constitution of the United States must, nevertheless, be applied to violations of the right
How later courts described this case
- establishing that the right of a capital defendant to be present at all stages of his trial is guaranteed by Article I, section 23 of the Constitution of North Carolina, but holding that the harmless error standard applicable to errors under the Constitution of the United States must, nevertheless, be applied to violations of the right
- "If consolidation hinders or deprives the accused of his ability to present his defense, the charges should not be consolidated." (citations omitted)
- applying harmless error review to alleged violations of defendant’s nonwaivable right to be present at all stages of his capital trial
- “before the jury ‘finds’ a nonstatutory mitigating circumstance, it must make two preliminary determinations: (1) That the evidence supports the existence of the circum stance and (2) that the circumstance has mitigating value.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*80 Chief Justice EXUM
concurring.
I concur with the majority’s treatment of all issues in the guilt and sentencing phases of this trial.
If in the sentencing phase the Court were addressing for the first time the mitigating circumstance unanimity instruction issue, I would agree with defendant’s position that these instructions violate the Eighth Amendment to the federal constitution as that amendment was interpreted in Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. —, 100 L.Ed. 2d 384 (1988), for the reasons stated in my dissenting opinions in State v. McKoy, 323 N.C. 1 , 372 S.E. 2d 12 (1988), cert. granted, — U.S. —, 103 L.Ed. 2d 180 (1989), and State v. Allen, 323 N.C. 208 , 372 S.E. 2d 855 (1988). The majority’s position on this issue is, as a result of the Court’s decisions in McKoy and Allen , the law of this state to which I am now bound. For this reason I concur with the majority’s treatment of this issue.