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State v. Green7/30/1998
e. The trial court sentenced defendant as a repeat offender and entered sentences of life imprisonment for first-degree sexual offense, six years' imprisonment for attempted first-degree rape to run concurrently with the life sentence, and fifteen years' imprisonment for first-degree burglary to run consecutively following the life sentence.
Defendant appealed to the Court of Appeals. In a unanimous opinion, the Court of Appeals found no error. Defendant is before this Court on a notice of appeal of a constitutional question. His petition for discretionary review as to additional issues was denied on 6 March 1997, as was the State's motion to dismiss the appeal.
The evidence at trial tended to show that for approximately six weeks prior to the night of 27 July 1994, the victim experienced repeated harassment from someone ringing her doorbell and banging on her doors and windows. The victim, a twenty-three-year-old mother of one, lived with her twenty-month-old son in an apartment in Fuquay-Varina. She kept a golf club beside her bed as a weapon due to the recent harassment.
On the night of 27 July 1994, the victim and her son were asleep in the same bed when a banging at the back door awakened her. She immediately called 911 for help and was on the phone with the 911 operator when she heard glass break on the back door. Defendant entered the victim's bedroom brandishing the handle from a mop and knocked the telephone from her hand. Defendant and the victim swung their respective weapons simultaneously. Both the golf club and the mop handle broke upon impact. Defendant then pulled the phone cord from the wall and knocked the victim onto the bed. He slapped her and told her, "shut up, b---h."
As the victim pleaded with defendant not to hurt her son, defendant told her he was going to "f--- ," and he pulled down her panties and forced her to the floor. Defendant pulled the victim's hair, slapped her several times and told her to spread her legs as he attempted to remove her shirt. Defendant then placed himself on top of the victim. During the assault, defendant fondled the victim's breasts, performed oral sex upon her, penetrated her vagina with his penis once or twice and inserted a finger in her vagina and anus. In the process, defendant told the victim he was going to "rip her insides out." Defendant only ceased his attack when the victim told him she thought she heard the police. As the police were entering the back door, defendant escaped through the front door. In addition to the sexual assault, the victim suffered bruises and blood clots in her eyes as well as a scar on her face where she was cut.
Two witnesses, one who gave a description matching defendant's characteristics and one who knew defendant, saw defendant emerge from the victim's apartment after the arrival of the police. The victim picked defendant's picture out of a possible suspects book containing over one hundred photographs and identified defendant in open court as her assailant. Further, defendant gave a statement to police admitting to his sexual assault of the victim.
I. Due Process
In his first assignment of error, defendant contends that N.C.G.S. ยง 7A-610 violates his right to due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution. Defendant asserts section 7A-610 is unconstitutionally vague because it provides no meaningful guidance to juvenile court Judges, resulting in arbitrary and discriminatory decisions regarding which juveniles to transfer to superior court. We find defendant's argument to be without merit.
Section 7A-610 provides in ap
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