STATE v. WALTERS (2020)

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

STATE of North Carolina v. Christina Shea WALTERS

No. 548A00-2

Decided: September 25, 2020

Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Danielle Marquis Elder, Senior Deputy Attorney General, and Jonathan P. Babb, Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State-appellee. Shelagh R. Kenney and Malcolm Ray Hunter Jr., Durham, for defendant-appellant. James E. Coleman Jr., for Charles Becton, Charles Daye, Valerie Johnson, Irving L. Joyner, Floyd B. McKissick Jr., Cressie H. Thigpen Jr., and Fred J. Williams, amici curiae. Jeremy M. Falcone, Paul F. Khoury, Robert L. Walker, and Madeline J. Cohen, for Former State and Federal Prosecutors, amicus curiae. Carlos E. Mahoney, Durham, Jin Hee Lee, and W. Kerrel Murray, for NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., amicus curiae. Janet Moore, for National Association for Public Defense, amicus curiae. James E. Williams Jr., Carrboro, Burton Craige, Raleigh, and Bidish Sarma, for North Carolina Advocates for Justice, amicus curiae. Grady Jessup, for North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers, amicus curiae. Cynthia F. Adcock, for North Carolina Council of Churches, amicus curiae. Lisa A. Bakale-Wise and Irving Joyner, for North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, amicus curiae. Professors Robert P. Mosteller & John Charles Boger, amici curiae. Robert P. Mosteller, for Retired Members of the North Carolina Judiciary, amici curiae. Joseph Blocher, for Social Scientists, amici curiae.

For the reasons stated in State v. Robinson, ––– N.C. ––––, 846 S.E.2d 711 (2020), the decision of the trial court is vacated and this case is remanded to the Superior Court, Cumberland County, for the reinstatement of defendant's sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

VACATED AND REMANDED.

If the Court were addressing for the first time the issue of whether the trial court's order should be reversed and the sentence of life imprisonment imposed upon defendant by Judge Spainhour reinstated on double jeopardy and related grounds, I would dissent from that decision and hold, for the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in State v. Robinson, ––– N.C. ––––, 846 S.E.2d 711 (2020), that the trial court's order should be reversed and this case remanded to the Superior Court, Cumberland County, for a new Racial Justice Act proceeding in accordance with this Court's decision in State v. Ramseur, 374 N.C. 658, 843 S.E.2d 106 (2020), and our 2015 order in this case. The decision of the majority in Robinson is, however, the law of North Carolina to which I am now bound. For this reason, I concur in the result reached by the Court in this case.

For the reasons stated in my dissenting opinions in State v. Robinson, ––– N.C. ––––, 846 S.E.2d 711 (2020), and State v. Ramseur, 374 N.C. 658, 843 S.E.2d 106 (2020), I respectfully dissent.

PER CURIAM.

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