concluding that an expert’s characterizing his opinion as a “guess” does not render the opinion inadmissible when the term implies uncertainty instead of “mere conjecture or speculation”
How later courts described this case
- concluding that an expert’s characterizing his opinion as a “guess” does not render the opinion inadmissible when the term implies uncertainty instead of “mere conjecture or speculation”
- holding that admission of expert testimony that defendant’s wounds were self-inflicted was harmless error when two other doctors testified to essentially same opinions
- relying on the fact that the defendant killed the victim in front of several small children as one basis for finding the death sentence proportionate
- about an hour after victim’s death, defendant told police officer that victim had stabbed him; statement not admitted because defendant had time to manufacture statement and it was not made spontaneously
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice FRYE
dissenting as to sentence.
For the reasons expressed in the Chief Justice’s dissenting opinions in State v. McKoy, 323 N.C. 1 , 372 S.E. 2d 12 and in State v. Allen, 323 N.C. 208 , 372 S.E. 2d 855 (1988), I believe the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Mills v. Maryland, 486 *407 U.S. ---, 100 L.Ed. 2d 384 (1988), requires that defendant be given a new sentencing hearing. Accordingly, I dissent from that portion of the Court’s opinion which rejects defendant’s argument based upon the holding of Mills . I concur in the result reached by the majority on the guilt phase issues.