State v. Alexander ( 2022 )

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA
2022-NCSC-26
No. 234PA20
Filed 11 March 2022
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
v.
KELVIN ALPHONSO ALEXANDER
On discretionary review pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-31 of a unanimous decision
of the Court of Appeals, 271 N.C. App. 77 (2020), affirming an order entered on 1
October 2018 by Judge Henry W. Hight, Jr., in Superior Court, Warren County,
denying defendant’s motion for postconviction DNA testing. Heard in the Supreme
Court on 5 October 2021.
Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Kristin J. Uicker, Assistant Attorney
General, for the State-appellee.
Glenn Gerding, Appellate Defender, by Anne M. Gomez, Assistant Appellate
Defender, for defendant-appellant.
Julie Boyer, Attorney at Law, by Julie C. Bower; Kelly M. Dermody; and Evan
J. Ballan, for The Innocence Network, amicus curiae.
ERVIN, Justice.
¶1 This case arises from a motion for postconviction DNA testing pursuant to
N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 filed by defendant Kelvin Alphonso Alexander over two decades
after he entered a plea of guilty to second-degree murder. At the conclusion of a
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hearing held for the purpose of considering defendant’s motion, the trial court entered
an order denying defendant’s request for postconviction DNA testing on the grounds
that defendant had failed to show that the requested testing would be material to his
defense. On appeal, we have been asked to determine (1) if defendants who are
convicted on the basis of a guilty plea are entitled to obtain postconviction DNA
testing pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 and (2) if so, whether defendant made the
necessary showing of materiality in this case. After careful consideration of the
record in light of the applicable law, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
I. Factual Background
A. Substantive Facts
¶2 On the morning of 17 September 1992, Carl Boyd was found dead behind the
counter of the Amoco service station that he managed in Norlina. After being
dispatched to the Amoco station, Deputy Sheriff William H. Aiken of the Warren
County Sheriff’s Office, who was accompanied by Special Agent D.G. McDougall of
the State Bureau of Investigation, discovered that Mr. Boyd had been shot multiple
times. A subsequent autopsy revealed that Mr. Boyd had sustained four gunshot
wounds to his back, abdomen, and forearm, with the medical examiner having
expressed the opinion that these wounds had been inflicted using a .22 caliber
handgun.
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¶3 In the course of their examination of the Amoco station, Deputy Aiken and
Special Agent McDougall seized several items of evidence, including a .22 caliber
projectile and three .22 caliber shell casings that were discovered on the service
station floor. In addition, Special Agent McDougall collected eighteen latent print
lifts from various parts of the service station. An SBI analyst later determined that
these lifts contained five usable latent fingerprints and two usable latent palm prints
and that three of the fingerprints belonged to Mr. Boyd and his wife. The firearm
that had been used to kill Mr. Boyd was never recovered.
¶4 On 19 September 1992, Deputy Aiken interviewed Orlinda Lashley, who had
been in the crowd outside the Amoco station while the investigating officers were
there. According to a subsequent report prepared by Special Agent R.G. Sims of the
State Bureau of Investigation, Ms. Lashley told Deputy Aiken that she had arrived
at the Amoco station at approximately 7:15 a.m. and had been standing next to the
gas tanks when she heard shouting, followed by two loud noises, emanating from the
interior of the service station. At that point, according to Ms. Lashley, two men
emerged from the front of the store, one of whom Ms. Lashley identified by name as
defendant. As defendant emerged from the Amoco station, defendant told Ms.
Lashley, “Hold it bitch, if you make a move, you’re dead,” after which he and the other
man got into a vehicle that they were using and drove away. Ms. Lashley claimed to
have left to go home before returning to the service station, in which she found Mr.
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Boyd, who died while holding her hands. After walking to another business across
the street and contacting law enforcement officers, Ms. Lashley noticed that
defendant was in the crowd that had gathered outside the Amoco station.
¶5 In light of the information that Ms. Lashley had provided, Deputy Aiken placed
defendant under arrest. At the time that he was questioned by investigating officers,
defendant denied having had any involvement in the killing of Mr. Boyd and claimed
that he had been at home in bed at the time of the robbery and murder. Defendant
did, on the other hand, admit to having gone to the Amoco station and to having stood
outside while investigating officers were in the building, although he denied having
ever entered the service station after Mr. Boyd began operating the business. Tanika
Brown, the teenage daughter of defendant’s father’s girlfriend, who lived with
defendant, told Special Agent Sims that defendant had been in bed on the morning
of Mr. Boyd’s death and that she had spoken to defendant at approximately 7:10 a.m.
or 7:15 a.m. about borrowing a gold chain from him given that school photographs
were to be taken that day.
¶6 On 21 September 1992, Deputy Aiken and Special Agent Sims interviewed Ms.
Lashley for a second time. Although the investigating officers showed her a
photographic lineup that contained images of six suspects, including defendant, Ms.
Lashley failed to identify any of the individuals depicted in the photographic array.
At the time of defendant’s sentencing hearing, Ms. Lashley explained that, even
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though she had recognized defendant’s photo when she was shown the photographic
lineup, she had not pointed him out because she had been asked to identify the second
person that she had seen leaving the Amoco station rather than defendant. After the
second interview, Ms. Lashley provided a formal statement describing what she had
seen, which was handwritten by Special Agent Sims and which Ms. Lashley
annotated and signed.
¶7 In this written statement, Ms. Lashley said that, after leaving the Amoco
station, she had parked in a nearby driveway to clean herself and change her clothes,1
at which point her “conscience was kicking in” and she “knew [she] had to go back.”
In light of this attack of conscience, Ms. Lashley said that she drove to the F&S
Convenience Store, which was located across the street from the Amoco station,
where she learned that Mr. Boyd had been shot. After determining that investigating
officers and emergency medical personnel had been dispatched to the wrong location,
Ms. Lashley claimed to have called 911 and informed the dispatcher that the officers
and emergency medical personnel were needed at the Amoco station. According to
Ms. Lashley, she accompanied the paramedics into the service station, where she saw
Mr. Boyd’s body, but did not “administer aid or touch him in any way.” Ms. Lashley
stated that she had not spoken to investigating officers at that time because she “was
1 At defendant’s sentencing hearing, Ms. Lashley testified that she was scared and
had “lost control of her bladder.”
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scared to death,” that she had known defendant for “most of his life,” that defendant
had gone to school with her nephew, and that she knew defendant’s father. Although
she was shown the photographic lineup again at the conclusion of this second
interview, Ms. Lashley again failed to identify any of the individuals who were
depicted in that array.
¶8 On 20 October 1992, Special Agent McDougall interviewed Nell and Bonnie
Ricks concerning a robbery that had occurred at a rest area located on Interstate 85
on the morning of Mr. Boyd’s murder. At the time of that conversation, Mr. Ricks
stated that, at approximately 7:00 a.m., he and his wife had stopped at the rest area,
which Deputy Aiken claimed to be a “two or three minutes’ drive” from the Amoco
station, and that he was using the restroom when a Black male held him at gunpoint
using what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun or .22 caliber rifle and demanded to
be given Mr. Ricks’ wallet. After handing over his wallet to the assailant, Mr. Ricks
remained in the restroom for another minute before returning to his car and calling
law enforcement officers. Ms. Ricks told Special Agent McDougall that she had seen
a Black man who was at least six feet tall, slender, and approximately twenty-five
years old exit the rest area building and enter an older, medium-sized white car.
Although Ms. Ricks was later shown a photographic lineup that contained
defendant’s image, Ms. Ricks did not identify anyone depicted in the lineup as the
person that she had seen at the rest area.
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B. Procedural History
¶9 On 19 October 1992, the Warren County grand jury returned bills of
indictment charging defendant with first-degree murder and robbery with a
dangerous weapon. In the course of pretrial proceedings, the prosecutor informed
defendant’s trial counsel that the State had a “credible eyewitness” who could identify
defendant as Mr. Boyd’s killer and that there was a “substantial possibility that
[defendant] would be convicted of first-degree murder.” The prosecutor did not,
however, provide defendant’s trial counsel with Ms. Lashley’s name or give
defendant’s trial counsel access to either Special Agent Sims’ report concerning
Deputy Aiken’s initial interview with Ms. Lashley or the handwritten statement that
Ms. Lashley had annotated and signed at the time of her second interview.
¶ 10 The charges against defendant came on for trial before Judge Knox V. Jenkins,
Jr., at the 15 November 1993 criminal session of Superior Court, Warren County. On
16 November 1993, during the process of selecting a death-qualified jury, defendant
entered into a plea agreement with the State pursuant to which he agreed to plead
guilty to second-degree murder in return for the dismissal of the robbery with a
dangerous weapon charge, with sentencing to be left to Judge Jenkins’ discretion. In
addition, the State agreed to produce its eyewitness at the sentencing hearing, during
which she could be cross-examined by defendant’s trial counsel. After accepting
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defendant’s guilty plea, Judge Jenkins scheduled a sentencing hearing for the
following day.
¶ 11 In the course of the ensuing sentencing hearing, Ms. Lashley testified in a
manner that was generally consistent with the written statement that she had signed
and annotated at the time of her second interview with the investigating officers.
Among other things, Ms. Lashley reiterated that, after leaving the Amoco station, she
had stopped to clean herself and change clothes before returning to the F&S
Convenience Store and calling for emergency assistance and that she had only
entered the Amoco station with the paramedics for a brief period of time before
returning to the exterior of the building. Finally, Ms. Lashley testified that she had
known defendant “[p]ractically all his life” and added that their families had been
close for as long as she could remember.
¶ 12 Defendant’s father, Willie Alexander, testified at the sentencing hearing
concerning defendant’s background and education without making any mention of
defendant’s whereabouts on the date of Mr. Boyd’s death. In the course of his
sentencing argument, defendant’s trial counsel commented that Ms. Lashley had
“presented a slightly different version” of what happened during the photo lineup
proceedings, mentioned Ms. Lashley’s assertion that she had not been asked to
identify defendant, and highlighted testimony from a classmate of Ms. Lashley’s
nephew to the effect that, while he and defendant “may have [had] a slight crossing
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of paths” in high school, they had graduated four years apart. Finally, defendant’s
trial counsel pointed to Ms. Lashley’s testimony that she had not lived in Warren
County from 1977, when defendant was five years old, to 1990, when defendant was
eighteen years old. Prior to announcing his sentencing decision, Judge Jenkins
observed that, in light of her demeanor, manner, and appearance, he believed that
Ms. Lashley had “an obvious lack of any interest, bias[,] or prejudice” and “appeared
to be fair in her testimony.” At the conclusion of the sentencing hearing and after
finding the existence of two aggravating factors and no mitigating factors, Judge
Jenkins entered a judgment sentencing defendant to a term of life imprisonment.
¶ 13 On 20 November 2002, defendant, who was proceeding pro se, filed a motion
for appropriate relief in which he asserted claims for ineffective assistance of counsel
and prosecutorial misconduct. On 4 April 2006, an evidentiary hearing was held
before Judge R. Allen Baddour, Jr., for the purpose of considering the issues raised
by defendant’s motion for appropriate relief. At the 4 April 2006 hearing, the
prosecutor testified that the State’s case against defendant “rested almost exclusively
on Ms. Lashley’s identification” of defendant as one of the men whom she had seen
leaving the Amoco station and that he “presumed” that, in the event that Ms. Lashley
had been unable to identify defendant as one of the perpetrators of the murder, Judge
Jenkins would have permitted defendant to withdraw his guilty plea.
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¶ 14 Marvin Rooker, who served as one of defendant’s trial attorneys, testified that,
although he had been aware that there were some potential issues relating to Ms.
Lashley’s ability to identify defendant after viewing the photographic lineup, he
believed that her testimony at the sentencing hearing had been “very credible” and
that she had been “a good witness for the State.” Frank Ballance, who served as
defendant’s other trial counsel, indicated that he had understood that defendant
would have been allowed to withdraw his guilty plea in the event that the State’s
alleged eyewitness had failed to testify. Mr. Alexander testified that defendant had
been at home at the time of Mr. Boyd’s death and that he had told defendant’s trial
counsel about his availability as an alibi witness prior to the entry of defendant’s
guilty plea, with Mr. Rooker confirming that, even though he was aware of the
possibility that defendant might be able to mount an alibi defense, defendant had
elected to plead guilty anyway.
¶ 15 Dominic White, who had pled guilty to federal criminal charges in 2004 and
remained in federal custody, testified that, while he was being debriefed by federal
authorities, he had told them that, in 1992, his friend, John Terry, had confessed to
having robbed and shot the owner of a convenience store in Warren County. Mr.
White said that, while he and Mr. Terry had been driving through the area, Mr. Terry
had stopped the car, run into the woods, and returned with what appeared to Mr.
White to be a .22 caliber short-barrel assault rifle, which Mr. Terry claimed to have
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been the firearm used in the robbery and shooting. On the other hand, Mr. Terry,
who also testified at the evidentiary hearing, denied having shot Mr. Boyd or told Mr.
White that he had done so and claimed that he did not know defendant and had never
met him.
¶ 16 On 8 January 2007, Judge Baddour entered an order denying defendant’s
motion for appropriate relief on the grounds that, at the time that defendant had
entered his guilty plea, “he was fully aware that the State claimed it had an
eyewitness” even though his trial counsel did not know the witness’ identity and had
not had time to investigate her story, with the purpose of her testimony at sentencing
having been to allow defendant “the opportunity to assess her testimony and
credibility.” In addition, Judge Baddour determined that, by failing to seek to
withdraw his guilty plea following Ms. Lashley’s testimony, defendant had expressed
satisfaction “with the nature and quality of the testimony of [Ms.] Lashley” and that,
even if defendant’s trial counsel had provided him with deficient representation in
light of their failure to learn Ms. Lashley’s identity until the time of the sentencing
hearing, there was “no reasonable probability” that, in the absence of that error,
defendant would not have entered a plea of guilty.
¶ 17 On 18 March 2016, defendant filed a motion seeking postconviction DNA
testing pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 in which he requested the entry of an order
compelling the performance of DNA and fingerprint testing on the three shell casings
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and projectile that had been found in the Amoco station on the theory that, in the
event that Mr. Terry’s DNA or fingerprints could be detected on these items, such a
result would exonerate defendant. On 1 October 2018, the trial court entered an
order denying defendant’s motion on the grounds that defendant had “failed to show
that all the requirements of [N.C.G.S. §] 15A-269 ha[d] been met” and that “the
evidence sought is not material in this post-conviction setting” given that “the firearm
which fired the bullet that killed Carl Eugene Boyd has never been recovered and the
requested DNA testing would not reveal the identity of who fired th[e] firearm [that]
killed Carl Eugene Boyd.” Defendant noted an appeal to the Court of Appeals from
the trial court’s order.
C. Court of Appeals Decision
¶ 18 In seeking relief from the trial court’s order before the Court of Appeals,
defendant contended that the trial court had erred by determining that the requested
DNA evidence was not material. Arguing in reliance upon the Court of Appeals’
earlier decision in State v. Randall, defendant asserted that the proper standard for
assessing materiality in cases involving guilty pleas focused upon the extent to which
“there is a reasonable probability that DNA testing would have produced a different
outcome”—specifically, that the defendant “would not have pleaded guilty and
otherwise would not have been found guilty.” 259 N.C. App. 885, 887 (2018).
Defendant contended that, had a third person’s DNA had been found on the shell
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casings and projectile and defendant’s DNA not been detected there, those results
would have provided significant support for a conclusion that someone else had been
involved in the commission of the crime that defendant had been convicted of
committing. In defendant’s view, had such evidence been available and had he known
about the “numerous problems” that tended to undermine Ms. Lashley’s
identification testimony, there was a reasonable probability that he would not have
entered a guilty plea. In addition, defendant asserted that there was a reasonable
probability that, had he insisted upon going to trial instead of pleading guilty, he
would not have been convicted given the newly available DNA evidence and the other
exculpatory evidence that was available to him.
¶ 19 In response, the State contended that defendant was not entitled to seek
postconviction DNA testing because he had entered a guilty plea. In the State’s view,
defendant’s guilty plea deprived him of the ability to make the necessary showing of
materiality given that he had not presented a “defense” for purposes of N.C.G.S. §
15A-296(a)(1) and could not have obtained a “more favorable verdict” in the absence
of a decision with respect to the issue of guilt rendered by a jury. In addition, the
State asserted that the Court of Appeals’ decision in Randall had been overruled in
State v. Sayre, 255 N.C. App. 215 (2020), aff’d per curiam, 371 N.C. 468 (2018)
(observing that, “by entering into plea agreement with the State and pleading guilty,
[the] defendant presented no ‘defense’ pursuant to [N.C.G.S.] § 15A-269(a)(1)”).
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Finally, the State argued that, even if defendant’s guilty plea did not preclude him
from seeking postconviction DNA testing, he had failed to make the necessary
showing of materiality given that the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming and
given that the presence of a third party’s DNA upon the relevant items of evidence
“would show at best that someone other than [d]efendant touched the shell casings
or projectile at some time [and] for some reason that need not have been related to
the robbery-murder.” In the same vein, the State noted that Mr. White’s testimony,
which had been given more than a decade after the entry of defendant’s guilty plea,
could not support a finding of materiality given that the evidence in question had not
been available at the time that defendant pled guilty and was sentenced.
¶ 20 In rejecting the State’s argument that a defendant who pleads guilty is not
entitled to seek postconviction DNA testing pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-269, the
Court of Appeals concluded that its prior decision in Randall was controlling with
respect to this issue and that “there may be rare situations where there is a
reasonable probability that a defendant would not have pleaded guilty in the first
instance and would have not otherwise been convicted had the results of DNA testing”
been available at the time of the defendant’s guilty plea. State v. Alexander, 271 N.C.
App. 77, 79 (2020) (citing Randall, 259 N.C. App. at 887). After acknowledging that
the use of the word “verdict” might tend to suggest that the General Assembly
intended to limit the availability of postconviction DNA testing to cases in which the
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defendant had been convicted based upon a decision by a jury, the Court of Appeals
concluded that “there is a strong counter-argument that the General Assembly did
not intend for the word ‘verdict’ to be construed in such a strict, legal sense” and that
the General Assembly had, instead, “intended for ‘verdict’ to be construed more
broadly, to mean ‘resolution,’ ‘judgment’ or ‘outcome’ in a particular matter,”
particularly given that a decision to adopt the more restrictive reading upon which
the State relied might lead to the absurd result that postconviction DNA testing
would not be available to a defendant who had been convicted at the conclusion of a
bench trial. Id. at 80; see id. at 80 n. 1 (citing State v. Hemphill, 273 N.C. 388, 389
(1968); N.C.G.S. § 1A-1, Rule 52 (2015)). Finally, the Court of Appeals concluded that
this Court’s decision to affirm the Court of Appeals’ decision in Sayre did not
constitute acceptance of the State’s position that postconviction DNA testing was not
available to defendants who had been convicted on the basis of a guilty plea rather
than a jury verdict because that question had not been before the Court in Sayre. Id.
at 81.
¶ 21 After determining that defendant’s guilty plea did not preclude him from
seeking postconviction DNA testing, the Court of Appeals held that the trial court
had correctly concluded that defendant had failed to make the necessary showing of
materiality. Id. at 81–82. In support of this decision, the Court of Appeals pointed
to the “substantial evidence of [d]efendant’s guilt,” including (1) Ms. Lashley’s
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testimony; (2) defendant’s admission that he had been at the Amoco station on the
date of the murder; and (3) defendant’s guilty plea. Id. In addition, the Court of
Appeals concluded that the mere presence of a third party’s DNA on the evidence that
defendant sought to have tested did not necessarily exonerate him given the existence
of a number of alternative explanations for the presence of a third party’s DNA on
that evidence. Id. at 82.
¶ 22 In a separate opinion concurring in the result, then-Judge Berger opined that
defendants who had been convicted on the basis of a plea of guilty plea did not have
the right to seek postconviction DNA testing. Id. at 82 (Berger, J., concurring). As
an initial matter, Judge Berger disputed the validity of the Court of Appeals’
determination that this Court’s decision in Sayre was limited to the issue of
materiality. Id. at 83–85. In addition, Judge Berger noted that, by pleading guilty,
defendant had “waive[d] all defenses other than that the indictment charges no
offense[,]” with the defenses that defendant had waived by entering a guilty plea
having included the right to seek postconviction DNA testing. Id. at 85 (quoting State
v. Smith, 279 N.C. 505, 506 (1971)). Judge Berger asserted that his colleagues had
construed the term “verdict” in an excessively broad manner, that the relevant
statutory expression should be understood in accordance with its “plain meaning,”
and that, in order for a defendant to make the necessary showing of materiality,
“there must have been a verdict returned by a jury.” Id. at 86–87. Finally, after
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noting that N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(b)(3) provides that a defendant seeking to obtain
DNA testing must execute an affidavit of innocence, Judge Berger opined that “[a]
defendant who, under oath, admits guilt to a charged offense, cannot thereafter
provide a truthful affidavit of innocence” as required by N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(b)(3). Id.
at 87. This Court allowed defendant’s petition for discretionary review of the Court
of Appeals’ decision on 12 August 2020.
II. Substantive Legal Analysis
A. Standard of Review
¶ 23 This Court reviews decisions of the Court of Appeals for errors of law. N.C. R.
App. P. 16(a); State v. Melton, 371 N.C. 750, 756 (2018). “In reviewing a denial of a
motion for postconviction DNA testing, ‘[f]indings of fact are binding on this Court if
they are supported by competent evidence and may not be disturbed absent an abuse
of discretion.’ ” State v. Lane, 370 N.C. 508, 517 (2018) (alteration in original)
(quoting State v. Gardner, 227 N.C. App. 364, 365–66 (2013)). “A trial court’s
determination of whether defendant’s request for postconviction DNA testing is
‘material’ to his defense, as defined in N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(b)(2), is a conclusion of law,
and thus we review de novo [a] trial court’s conclusion that defendant failed to show
the materiality of his request.” Id. at 517–18.
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B. Availability of Postconviction DNA Testing Following a Guilty Plea
¶ 24 According to N.C.G.S § 15A-269, a convicted defendant is entitled to obtain
postconviction DNA testing of evidence that:
(1) Is material to the defendant’s defense.
(2) Is related to the investigation or prosecution
that resulted in the judgment.
(3) Meets either of the following conditions:
a. It was not DNA tested previously.
b. It was tested previously, but the requested
DNA test would provide results that are
significantly more accurate and probative of
the identity of the perpetrator or accomplice
or have a reasonable probability of
contradicting prior test results.
N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(a) (2021). A trial court is required to allow a request for
postconviction DNA testing in the event that the criteria specified in N.C.G.S. § 15A-
269(a) have been established and that:
(2) If the DNA testing being requested had been
conducted on the evidence, there exists a
reasonable probability that the verdict would
have been more favorable to the defendant; and
(3) The defendant has signed a sworn affidavit of
innocence.
N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(b). “Materiality” as used in the statutory provisions governing
postconviction DNA testing should be understood in the same way that “materiality”
is understood in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and its progeny, Lane, 370
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N.C. at 519, with the relevant inquiry being whether “there is a reasonable
probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the
proceeding would have been different.” United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 682
(1985).
¶ 25 The initial issue that we need to address in evaluating the validity of
defendant’s challenge to the Court of Appeals’ decision to uphold the trial court’s
order is whether our decision in Sayre should be understood to deprive defendants
convicted on the basis of guilty pleas of the right to seek and obtain postconviction
DNA testing even if they are otherwise able to satisfy the applicable statutory
requirements. The majority at the Court of Appeals held in Sayre that the
defendant’s “bare assertion that testing the identified evidence would ‘prove that [he]
is not the perpetrator of the crimes’ is not sufficiently specific to establish that the
requested DNA testing would be material to his defense.” State v. Sayre, No. COA17-
68, 2017 WL 3480951, at *2 (N.C. Ct. App. Aug. 15, 2017) (unpublished). In addition,
the Court of Appeals observed that, “by entering into a plea agreement with the State
and pleading guilty, [the] defendant presented no ‘defense’ pursuant to [N.C.G.S.] §
15A-269(a)(1)” and did not have the right to seek or obtain postconviction DNA
testing. Id. at *2. In light of his belief that defendant had, in fact, made a sufficient
showing of “materiality,” Judge Murphy dissented from his colleagues’ decision and
concluded that the case should have been remanded to the trial court for further
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proceedings. Id. at *3 (Murphy, J., dissenting). The defendant noted an appeal from
the Court of Appeals’ decision to this Court based upon Judge Murphy’s dissent.
¶ 26 According to well-established North Carolina law, “[w]hen an appeal is taken
pursuant to [N.C.G.S.] § 7A-30(2), the only issues properly before the Court are those
on which the dissenting judge in the Court of Appeals based his dissent.” Clifford v.
River Bend Plantation, Inc., 312 N.C. 460, 463 (1984). In light of that fact, the only
issue before this Court in Sayre was whether the defendant had sufficiently alleged
that the performance of postconviction DNA testing would be “material.” For that
reason, our decision in Sayre did not address, much less resolve, the issue of whether
a defendant whose conviction stemmed from a guilty plea is entitled to seek and
obtain postconviction DNA testing. As a result, the extent to which a plea of guilty
operates as a categorial bar to postconviction DNA testing pursuant to N.C.G.S. §
15A-269 is a question of first impression for this Court.
¶ 27 In seeking to persuade us that defendants who have been convicted on the
basis of a guilty plea are ineligible to seek postconviction DNA testing, the State
contends that, “[u]nder the plain, unambiguous language of [N.C.G.S. §] 15A-269, a
defendant who pled guilty cannot meet the statutory requirements that would entitle
him to postconviction DNA testing.” In the State’s view, the statutory reference to a
“verdict” demonstrates the General Assembly’s intent that the only persons entitled
to seek postconviction DNA testing are those who were convicted as the result of a
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jury verdict. According to the State, this relatively strict reading of the relevant
statutory language would not exclude those found guilty at a bench trial from
obtaining postconviction DNA testing given that N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 had been
enacted in 2001, while criminal bench trials had not been authorized until 2013. As
further support for this contention, the State directs our attention to several cases in
which this Court used the term “verdict” to refer to the decision that the trial judge
makes at the conclusion of a bench trial, see, e.g., State v. Puckett, 299 N.C. 727, 727
(1980); State v. Willis, 285 N.C. 195, 197 (1974); State v. Brooks, 287 N.C. 392, 405
(1975), and a decision by the Court of Appeals describing the ruling made by a district
court judge at the conclusion of a bench trial as a “verdict,” see State v. Surles, 55 N.C.
App. 179, 182 (1981). As a result, the State contends that “the standard [applicable
to requests for postconviction DNA testing] does not apply to defendants who were
convicted by means other than a factfinder’s decision at a trial.”
¶ 28 In addition, the State argues that, even though “[N.C.G.S. §] 15A-269(a)(1)
presupposes that the defendant presented a ‘defense’ in order to evaluate whether
the [DNA] evidence is relevant to that defense,” “a defense was never presented”
“when a defendant enters a plea of guilty.” On the contrary, the State argues that,
by pleading guilty, “the defendant admitted his guilt” and “waived all defenses” other
than a challenge to the sufficiency of the indictment, including “his right to test the
evidence before a jury.” In other words, the State contends that the fact that the
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defendant entered a guilty plea demonstrates that he or she had no “defense” to which
postconviction DNA testing could be material, with “[a]ny analysis of whether testing
is material to [the d]efendant’s ‘defense’ [in cases involving guilty pleas necessarily]
begin[ning] with speculation as to what his defense was.”
¶ 29 Aside from these arguments, which rely directly upon specific language that
appears in N.C.G.S. § 15A-269, the State advances a number of prudential arguments
in opposition to a decision to allow defendants convicted on the basis of guilty pleas
to seek and obtain postconviction DNA testing. For example, the State asserts that
allowing such a defendant access to postconviction DNA testing would be inconsistent
with the statutory requirement that a defendant seeking such testing “sign[ ] a sworn
affidavit of innocence,” N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(b)(3), on the theory that, in order “[t]o
comply with this requirement, a defendant who pled guilty and swore himself to be
‘in fact guilty’ of the crime must either: (1) lie and swear he is innocent even though
he knows he is not or (2) admit that his earlier statement of factual guilt was untrue.”
In addition, the State argues that “[t]here is no precedent binding in North Carolina
that applies Brady to guilty pleas,” a fact that the State believes to be “relevant
because [N.C.G.S.] § 15A-269(b)(2) adopts the Brady standard” and “[t]he General
Assembly is presumed to act ‘with full knowledge of prior and existing law and its
construction by the courts,’ ” State v. Anthony, 351 N.C. 611, 618 (2000). Similarly,
the State argues that a defendant’s decision to enter a guilty plea obviates the
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Opinion of the Court
necessity for the State to make a full evidentiary presentation at trial, “mak[ing] it
difficult[,] if not impossible[,] for any court to evaluate how potential DNA testing
might affect the fact finder’s assessment of the evidence.” Finally, the State expresses
concern about the possibility that defendants might engage in “gamesmanship” by
pleading guilty in order to avoid the full development of a trial record before filing a
subsequent motion for postconviction DNA testing pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-269.
¶ 30 In seeking to persuade us to uphold the Court of Appeals’ decision with respect
to this issue, defendant argues, in reliance upon Randall, that, when the General
Assembly enacted N.C.G.S. § 15A-269, it intended for defendants who were convicted
based upon a plea of guilty to be able to seek post-conviction DNA testing. In support
of this assertion, defendant directs our attention to the language of the statute, the
practical consequences that will result from the differing ways in which the relevant
statutory language can be construed, the remedial nature of the statute, the title of
the legislation that enacted the statute, and the political and social context in which
the statute was enacted. More specifically, defendant asserts that N.C.G.S. § 15A-
269 was enacted during a period in which many individuals convicted of serious
crimes were being exonerated through the use of modern DNA testing procedures,
with the relevant statutory provisions having arisen from “concerns that there are
people who have been convicted of serious crimes who are innocent.” In light of the
remedial nature of N.C.G.S. § 15A-269, defendant contends that its language “must
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not be given an interpretation that will result in injustice if it ‘may reasonably be
otherwise consistently construed with the intent of the act,’ ” Nationwide Mut. Ins.
Co., 293 N.C. 431, 440 (1977). According to defendant, interpreting N.C.G.S. § 15A-
269 to exclude defendants whose convictions were based upon guilty pleas would
result in significant injustice given that many defendants plead guilty in spite of the
fact that they are factually innocent.
¶ 31 In defendant’s view, nothing in the language of N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 expressly
excludes defendants who plead guilty from seeking postconviction DNA testing, with
the manner in which Judge Berger parsed the relevant statutory language having
involved a failure to give appropriate regard to the “eminently reasonable” reading of
the statute that the Court of Appeals adopted in Randall and having overlooked the
fact that, even though “the [General Assembly] has amended N.C.G.S. § 15A-269
several times since its enactment,” it “has chosen not to amend the statute in reaction
to Randall.” Furthermore, defendant contends that a strict reading of the term
“verdict” would lead to the absurd result that any defendant convicted by a jury, but
not a defendant convicted at a bench trial or a defendant who enters a plea of guilty
in reliance upon the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in North
Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970), could successfully seek and obtain
postconviction DNA testing by making the required statutory showing.
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¶ 32 Defendant points out that his sentencing hearing took place prior to the recent
enactment of criminal justice reform legislation and at a time when defendants had
limited access to pre-trial discovery and when prosecutors were required to try a first-
degree murder case capitally if the record contained evidence tending to show that at
least one aggravating circumstance existed. In addition, defendant notes that, at the
time that he entered his guilty plea, there was strong public support for the death
penalty and a significant number of death sentences were being imposed. See
Barbara O’Brien & Catherine M. Grosso, Confronting Race: How a Confluence of
Social Movements Convinced North Carolina to Go Where the McCleskey Court
Wouldn’t, 2011 Mich. St. L. Rev. 463, 488 (2011); Cynthia F. Adcock, The Twenty-
Fifth Anniversary of Post-Furman Executions in North Carolina: A History of One
Southern State’s Evolving Standards of Decency, 1 Elon L. Rev. 113, 131, 131 n. 96
(2009) (citations omitted). According to defendant, it was “against this backdrop that
defendants charged with first-degree murder in the early 1990’s who were actually
innocent had to decide whether to plead guilty rather than roll the dice with a jury
and the appellate courts.”
¶ 33 Finally, defendant notes that he was not provided with either of Ms. Lashley’s
statements and that he did not know the identity of the State’s eyewitness or the
nature of her testimony prior to the sentencing hearing, so that he was left without
“crucial information about the weakness of the State’s evidence” at the time that he
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entered his guilty plea even though, in light of the fact that the State had evidence
tending to show the existence of at least two possible statutory aggravating
circumstances,2 his case had to be tried capitally. Defendant asserts that, despite the
fact that he had “strongly and repeatedly proclaimed his innocence from the time of
his arrest through the time of his plea,” “the lack of almost any knowledge of the
evidence against him, combined with the fact that he was facing the death penalty in
a very death-prone state, could cause even the most resolute of defendants to crack
under the pressure.” As a result, for all of these reasons, defendant contends that
defendants who enter guilty pleas should not be precluded from seeking and
obtaining postconviction DNA testing pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-269.
¶ 34 “The primary rule of construction of a statute is to ascertain the intent of the
legislature and to carry out such intention to the fullest extent.” Burgess v. Your
House of Raleigh, Inc., 326 N.C. 205, 209 (1990). Although the first step in
determining legislative intent involves an examination of the “plain words of the
statute,” Elec. Supply Co. of Durham v. Swain Elec. Co., 328 N.C. 651, 656 (1991),
“[l]egislative intent can be ascertained not only from the phraseology of the statute
2The aggravating circumstances that the State might have had sufficient evidence to
attempt to establish included that Mr. Boyd was killed during the commission of an armed
robbery, see N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(5) (1992), and that the killing of Mr. Boyd “was
committed for pecuniary gain,” see N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(6) (1992). However, in accordance
with this Court’s decision in State v. Quesinberry, 319, N.C. 228, 238 (1987), the jury would
have only been entitled to consider one of these two factors had it been called upon to
determine whether defendant should have been sentenced to death.
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but also from the nature and purpose of the act and the consequences which would
follow its construction one way or the other,” Sutton v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 325
N.C. 259, 265 (1989) (citations omitted). As this Court has clearly stated, remedial
statutes such as N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 “should be construed liberally, in a manner
which assures fulfillment of the beneficial goals, for which [they were] enacted and
which brings within [them] all cases fairly falling within its intended scope.” Burgess
v. Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co., 298 N.C. 520, 524 (1979).
¶ 35 As defendant points out, nothing in the text of N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 expressly
precludes defendants who have pleaded guilty from seeking postconviction DNA
testing.3 In addition, the relevant statutory language is not devoid of ambiguity. See
3 The General Assembly does, of course, understand how to limit the rights of
convicted criminal defendants who have entered pleas of guilty to seek relief from their
convictions and related sentences on direct appeal. For example, N.C.G.S. § 15A-1444 limits
the ability of a convicted criminal defendant who entered a plea of guilty to seek appellate
review of his or her conviction as a matter of right by providing that such a defendant may
only contend on direct appeal that the evidence admitted at the sentencing hearing did not
support the sentence imposed by the trial court or in the event that the trial court sentenced
the defendant to a term of imprisonment that falls outside the presumptive range for a
defendant convicted of committing an offense of the same class with the same prior record
level, N.C.G.S. § 15A-1444(a1) (2021), and on the grounds that the trial court erred in
ascertaining the defendant’s prior record level or the trial court’s judgment contained an
unauthorized disposition or term of imprisonment. N.C.G.S. § 15A-1444(a2). Similarly, a
defendant whose conviction rests upon a guilty or no contest plea may appeal the trial court’s
decision to deny his motion to withdraw his plea of guilty or no contest. N.C.G.S. § 15A-
1444(e). Finally, a defendant convicted on the basis of a plea of guilty is entitled to appellate
review of the trial court’s decision to deny his or her motion to suppress unlawfully obtained
evidence under certain circumstances. N.C.G.S. § 15A-979(b) (2021); see also State v.
Reynolds, 298 N.C. 380, 397 (1979). Aside from these instances, however, a defendant
convicted on the basis of a plea of guilty is only entitled to direct review in the appellate
division by seeking the issuance of a writ of certiorari. N.C.G.S. § 15A-1444(a1).
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Winkler v. N.C. State Bd. of Plumbing, 374 N.C. 726, 730 (2020) (describing an
ambiguous statute as one that is “equally susceptible of multiple interpretations”).
Although the presence of the term “verdict” in the relevant statutory language may
suggest that the General Assembly did, in fact, primarily have jury trials in mind at
the time that it drafted N.C.G.S. § 15A-269, we are unable to understand the term
“verdict” to operate as a limitation upon the reach of postconviction DNA testing
given the manner in which the statute, considered as a whole, is written and the
circumstances that led to its enactment. See State v. Winslow, 274 Neb. 427, 434, 740
N.W.2d 794, 799 (2007) (concluding that, despite the reference to a “trial” in
Nebraska’s postconviction DNA testing statute, that statute, when considered “as a
whole,” indicates that the Nebraska legislature did not intend to limit the availability
of postconviction DNA testing to persons who had been convicted at the conclusion of
a contested trial on the issue of guilt or innocence). While the decision of a jury may
be the quintessential example of what constitutes a “verdict,” the fact that a “verdict”
can consist of “an opinion or judgment,” New Oxford American Dictionary 1921 (3d
ed. 2010), or “[a]n expressed conclusion; a judgment or opinion,” American Heritage
Dictionary (5th ed. 2012), and the State’s concession that the term “verdict” as used
in N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(b)(2) can encompass more than “a jury’s or decision on the
factual issues of a case,” Verdict, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019), suggests
that the term “verdict” can be understood in a broader sense as well. See also id.
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(recognizing that “verdict” can also be defined “loosely, in a nonjury trial, [as] a judge’s
resolution of the issues of a case” and that today the term “typically survives in
contexts not involving a jury”). We have previously recognized that “[c]ourts may and
often do consult dictionaries” to determine the ordinary meaning of words used in
statutes and that such words “are construed in accordance with their ordinary
meaning unless some different meaning is definitively indicated by the context.” State
v. Ludlum, 303 N.C. 666, 671 (1981) (emphasis added). As a result, the mere fact
that the relevant statutory language speaks in terms of a “verdict” does not, without
more, necessarily suggest that postconviction DNA testing is only available to
situations in which the defendant’s conviction stems from a decision on the merits of
the issue of guilt or innocence by a trier of fact.
¶ 36 Similarly, we are not persuaded that the term “defense” as used in N.C.G.S.
§ 15A-269(a)(1) should be limited to the specific arguments that the defendant
advanced before the trial court prior to his or her conviction. In ordinary parlance, a
“defense” is nothing more than an “attempted justification or vindication of
something.” New Oxford American Dictionary 454 (3d ed. 2010). Although a “defense”
can be understood as “[a] defendant’s stated reason why the plaintiff or prosecutor
has no valid case,” it can also be understood as “[a] defendant’s method and strategy
in opposing the plaintiff or the prosecution,” Defense, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th
ed. 2019) (emphasis added), with other sources having broadly defined the term as
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“any matter that the defendant will in practice raise,” Glanville Williams, Textbook
of Criminal Law 114 n.3 (1978); “[a] fact or law that provides a full or partial
exoneration of the defendant against the charges or claims made in a lawsuit or
prosecution,” American Heritage Dictionary (5th ed. 2012); and “the method and
collected facts adopted by a defendant to protect himself against a plaintiff’s action,”
Webster’s Third Int’l Dictionary (1961). Thus, the statutory reference to a “defense”
is sufficiently broad to include any argument that might have been available to a
defendant to preclude a conviction or establish guilt for a lesser offense.
¶ 37 The practicalities of the manner in which the criminal process functions
provide additional grounds for believing that “defense” as used in N.C.G.S. § 15A-269
should be read broadly. Aside from the fact that a defendant may contemplate relying
upon many possible defenses before settling upon one or more of them for use before
the trial court, a defendant may ultimately decide to refrain from presenting any
“defense” at all and to enter a plea of guilty for a number of reasons that do not hinge
upon his or her actual guilt or innocence, including a concern that the risk of a
conviction is so great that a guilty plea represents the best way to avoid the
imposition of a more severe sentence. See State v. Harbison, 315 N.C. 175, 180 (1985)
(recognizing that there are “situations where the evidence is so overwhelming that a
plea of guilty is the best trial strategy”). As a result, the mere fact that a particular
defendant elects to enter a guilty plea does not mean that he or she had no defense
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and would not have been willing to assert it had additional evidence been available.
Cf. State v. Hewson, 220 N.C. App. 117, 124 (2012) (assessing whether the requested
DNA evidence would be material to a heat of passion defense, even though that
defense had not been raised at trial).
¶ 38 A broader reading of the reference to a “defense” in N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(a)(1)
than that contended for by the State is also supported by other portions of the
relevant statutory language, which requires a litigant seek such testing to show that
postconviction DNA testing “[i]s material to the defendant’s defense” rather than to
the defense that the defendant actually presented at trial. N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(a)(1).
Put another way, the fact that N.C.G.S. § 269(a)(1) is couched in the present tense
suggests a recognition on the part of the General Assembly that a defendant’s
“defense” may evolve in light of newly available DNA evidence. As a result, the
statutory reference to the defendant’s “defense” does not, without more, satisfy us
that the General Assembly intended to limit the availability of postconviction DNA
testing to defendants who were convicted at the conclusion of a contested trial on the
issue of guilt or innocence.
¶ 39 The General Assembly enacted N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 by means of a piece of
legislation entitled “An Act to Assist an Innocent Person Charged With or Wrongly
Convicted of a Criminal Offense in Establishing the Person’s Innocence.” S.L. 2001-
282, § 4, 2001 N.C. Sess. Laws 833, 837. As we have previously held, “even when the
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language of a statute is plain, ‘the title of an act should be considered in ascertaining
the intent of the legislature.’ ” Ray v. N.C. Dep’t of Transp., 366 N.C. 1, 8 (2012)
(quoting Smith Chapel Baptist Church v. City of Durham, 350 N.C. 805, 812 (1999)).
“[T]he title is part of the bill when introduced, being placed there by its author, and
probably attracts more attention than any other part of the proposed law; and if it
passes into law, the title thereof is consequently a legislative declaration of the tenor
and object of the act.” State v. Keller, 214 N.C. 447, 447 (1938). As the title to the
relevant legislation makes clear, the General Assembly enacted N.C.G.S. § 15A-269
for the purpose of allowing wrongly convicted persons to assert and establish their
innocence.
¶ 40 As of the date upon which the General Assembly enacted N.C.G.S. § 15A-269,
a number of defendants who had been convicted of committing serious crimes had
been exonerated as a result of DNA testing, a technology that had only become widely
available in the relatively recent past. According to the National Registry of
Exonerations, 102 people across the United States had been exonerated as a result of
DNA testing from 1989 to 2001, with three of these cases having involved North
Carolina defendants,4 one of whom had served four years in prison after having
4 National Registry of Exonerations,
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/detaillist.aspx. The registry is a
project of the Newkirk Center for Science & Society at the University of California-Irvine,
the University of Michigan Law School, and the Michigan State University College of Law.
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entering a plea of guilty to committing a sexual assault before DNA testing
demonstrated that he did not commit that crime.5
¶ 41 Any argument that innocent people do not enter guilty pleas and that the
General Assembly could not have intended to create a situation in which defendants
were allowed to make conflicting sworn statements concerning their guilt or
innocence fails for a number of reasons as well. Aside from the fact that at least one
North Carolina defendant who had been convicted based upon his plea of guilty had
been exonerated through the use of DNA testing even before enactment of N.C.G.S.
§ 15A-269, of the 2,997 documented cases since 1989 in which individuals who have
been exonerated after having been wrongfully convicted, 672—or over 22 percent—
involved guilty pleas,6 with this number including thirteen cases arising in North
Carolina, eight of whom were exonerated on the basis of DNA testing.7 For that
reason, the available evidence clearly suggests that innocent people do, in fact, enter
guilty pleas.
5 Profile of Keith Brown, National Registry of Exonerations,
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3062 (last
visited Mar. 2, 2022).
6 National Registry of Exonerations,
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/detaillist.aspx (apply filter for “Guilty
Plea”) (last visited March 2, 2022).
7 National Registry of Exonerations,
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/detaillist.aspx. (apply filters for
“North Carolina” and “Guilty Plea”) (last visited March 2, 2022).
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¶ 42 An innocent person may plead guilty to the commission of a criminal offense
for a number of perfectly understandable reasons. For example, an innocent
defendant may elect to plead guilty to avoid the risks and uncertainties associated
with a trial that may result in a more severe sentence than the one offered by the
prosecutor pursuant to a plea agreement. See Corinna B. Lain, Accuracy Where it
Matters: Brady v. Maryland in the Plea Bargaining Context, 80 Wash. U. L. Q. 1, 29
(2002) (observing that an innocent defendant may choose to “cut [his or her] losses”
and plead guilty when he or she is “faced with an intolerably high estimate of the
chance of conviction at trial”). As evidence of that fact, we note that a 2002 report by
the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission, a body that provides
recommendations to the General Assembly regarding sentencing legislation, found
that defendants who enter guilty pleas “may get a shorter active sentence or avoid
active time altogether by getting probation.” N.C. Sent’g & Pol’y Advisory Comm’n,
Sentencing Practices Under North Carolina’s Structured Sentencing Laws 24 (2002)
[hereinafter Sentencing Practices].8 In addition, entering a guilty plea provides the
defendant with “more control over the sentence” and facilitates an outcome that “is
more predictable than what a judge and jury may decide to do.” Id. Finally,
defendants often plead guilty “out of pure fear” that they will be treated more harshly
8 Available at
https://www.nccourts.gov/assets/documents/publications/disparityreportforwebR_060209.pd
f?1iTr9wYxjAeDSGBuk5MdRLfgFq0ELkz.
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if they insist upon pleading not guilty and going to trial, Daina Borteck, Note, Pleas
for DNA Testing: Why Lawmakers Should Amend State Post-Conviction DNA Testing
Statutes to Apply to Prisoners Who Pled Guilty, 25 Cardozo L. Rev. 1429, 1440 (2004),
as is evidenced by the Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission’s conclusion that
“prosecutors are more likely to seek an aggravated sentence or to ask for consecutive
sentences in cases that proceed through trial,” Sentencing Practices at 24, despite the
fact that a defendant has a constitutional right not to be penalized for exercising the
right to plead not guilty and be tried by a jury of his or her peers, State v. Maske, 358
N.C 40, 61 (2004).
¶ 43 An innocent defendant may be particularly prone to enter a guilty plea in a
potentially capital case like this one. As the Innocence Network points out in its
amicus brief, an innocent defendant may be confronted with the difficult choice of
“falsely plead[ing] guilty and serv[ing] time in prison, or risk[ing] execution,” with
“many understandably choos[ing] the guilty plea” when “[f]aced with that dilemma.”
Similarly, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York has noted that the “plea bargain[ing] system, by creating such
inordinate pressures to enter into plea bargains, appears to have led a significant
number of defendants to plead guilty to crimes they never actually committed,” with
defendants charged with rape and murder having presumably done “so because, even
though they were innocent, they faced the likelihood of being convicted of capital
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offenses and sought to avoid the death penalty, even at the price of life
imprisonment.” Jed S. Rakoff, Why Innocent People Plead Guilty, N.Y. Rev. of Books
(Nov. 20, 2014).9 As a result, an innocent defendant may well choose the relative
certainty of the more lenient sentence associated with the entry of a guilty plea to the
risk of receiving a more severe one following a guilty verdict rendered at trial. Any
decision to limit the scope of the relief that the General Assembly intended to make
available by means of the enactment of N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 to those whose convictions
resulted from decisions made at the conclusion of trials on the merits overlooks the
extent to which innocent people can be wrongfully convicted after pleading guilty,
with there being no reason that we can identify for the General Assembly to have
decided that wrongfully convicted individuals who pled guilty should be treated
differently than wrongfully convicted individuals who were incarcerated as the result
of decisions made by juries or trial judges sitting without a jury.
¶ 44 Finally, a criminal defendant is not required to admit guilt as a precondition
for entering a valid plea of guilty. Aside from the fact that nothing in N.C.G.S. § 15A-
1022 requires the defendant to make such an admission, the Supreme Court of the
United States clearly held in Alford that “[a]n individual accused of crime may
voluntarily, knowingly, and understandingly consent to the imposition of a prison
9 Available at https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-
plead-guilty/?lp_txn_id=1298990.
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sentence even if he is unwilling or unable to admit his participation in the acts
constituting the crime.” 400 U.S. at 37. As a result, we do not believe that precluding
a convicted criminal defendant from seeking postconviction DNA testing pursuant to
N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 serves any interest that the State might have in upholding that
truthfulness of information submitted for a court’s consideration, and that the
concern that a defendant may execute an affidavit of innocence that conflicts with an
earlier admission of guilt is insufficient, in our view, to justify a refusal to deprive a
person who claims to have been wrongfully convicted of the right to seek and obtain
postconviction DNA testing pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-269.
¶ 45 The other prudential arguments that the State has advanced in support of a
construction that denies the relief otherwise available pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-
269 to convicted defendants who enter guilty pleas do not strike us as persuasive
either. As should be obvious, the most likely relief that a defendant who successfully
obtains postconviction DNA testing that produces an exculpatory result can obtain
will be the granting of a new trial. See N.C.G.S. § 15A-270(c) (2021). Although the
ways of convicted criminal defendants are sometimes difficult to fathom, we find it
hard to believe that such a person would enter a plea of guilty in order to improve his
odds of procuring a new trial through the use of postconviction DNA testing given
that he or she could have had a trial without subjecting himself or herself to the
imposition of criminal sanction. For that reason, we do not find the State’s expression
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of concern about “gamesmanship” on the part of criminal defendants who elect to
enter pleas of guilty to be particularly compelling.
¶ 46 The same is true of the State’s contention that the General Assembly could not
have intended for postconviction DNA testing to be made available to defendants who
entered guilty pleas in light of the State’s interest in the finality of criminal
judgments and the fact that this Court has never held that Brady relief was available
to defendants whose convictions rested upon pleas of guilty.10 As an initial matter,
we note that the State’s interest in the finality of criminal judgments is not absolute;
indeed, the existence of statutory provisions relating to motions for appropriate relief
and postconviction DNA testing demonstrates the General Assembly’s recognition
that, on occasion, the State’s interest in finality should give way to other
considerations. Moreover, the General Assembly has required a defendant to make
a materiality showing as a precondition for obtaining postconviction DNA testing in
recognition of the importance of the finality interest upon which the State relies.
Lane, 370 N.C. at 524 (stating that allowing DNA testing in the absence of a
10 Although the Supreme Court of the United States has not addressed the extent to
which Brady claims can be asserted by defendants convicted on the basis of a guilty plea, at
least three federal circuit courts have expressly allowed the assertion of such claims, Sanchez
v. United States, 50 F.3d 1448, 1454 (9th Cir. 1995); Miller v. Angliker, 848 F.2d 1312, 1322
(2d Cir. 1988); White v. United States, 858 F.2d 416, 424 (8th Cir. 1988), with one circuit
having reached the opposite conclusion, United States v. Conroy, 567 F.3d 174, 178 (5th Cir.
2009), and with other circuits having expressed uncertainty about the extent to which such
claims are available without having explicitly prohibited them, see United States v.
Moussaoui, 591 F.3d 263, 285 (4th Cir. 2010); United States v. Mathur, 624 F.3d 498, 506 (1st
Cir. 2010).
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materiality requirement “would set a precedent for allowing criminal defendants to
ceaselessly attack the finality of criminal convictions without significantly assisting
in the search for truth”). In addition, it seems to us that, subject to any constitutional
limitations that may otherwise exist, the General Assembly is free to adopt whatever
standard for making postconviction DNA testing available to convicted criminal
defendants that it thinks best and elected, in the exercise of its legislative authority,
to use a Brady-based standard for that purpose in N.C.G.S. § 15A-269. See Lane, 370
N.C. at 519. Finally, the Supreme Court of the United States and other courts have
successfully analyzed both materiality and the related concept of prejudice in the
postconviction context in cases arising from guilty pleas. See Hill v. Lockhart, 474
U.S. 52, 58–59 (1985) (holding that, in order to make the showing of prejudice
necessary to support an ineffective assistance of counsel claim in a guilty plea context,
the defendant “must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s
errors, he would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial”);
see also Buffey v. Ballard, 236 W. Va. 509, 515–16, 782 S.E.2d 204, 210–11 (2015)
(holding that the State’s failure to disclose certain DNA evidence violated the
defendant’s due process rights on the grounds that, if the evidence in question had
been disclosed to the defendant, he would not have entered a guilty plea or been
advised to do so by his attorney and would have been able to raise a reasonable doubt
about his guilt at trial); Miller, 848 F.2d at 1322 (concluding that, “if there is a
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Opinion of the Court
reasonable probability that but for the withholding of the information the accused
would not have entered the recommended plea but would have insisted on going to a
full trial, the withheld information is material” for purposes of Brady); Sanchez, 50
F.3d at 1454 (holding that “the issue in a case involving a guilty plea is whether there
is a reasonable probability that but for the failure to disclose the Brady material, the
defendant would have refused to plead and would have gone to trial”). As a result,
aside from the fact that the General Assembly appears to have had an absolute right
to adopt a Brady-based standard for use in determining whether a defendant who
had been convicted as the result of a guilty plea was entitled to postconviction DNA
testing, there is ample basis for concluding that such a standard can readily be
applied in the guilty plea context and is frequently used in addressing the validity of
similar claims.11
¶ 47 Finally, the State’s expressions of concern about the difficulty of defeating a
defendant’s effort to make the required showing of materiality arising from the fact
11 The State’s argument in reliance upon Brady appears to rest upon the assumption
that, by holding that the use of a Brady-based materiality standard was inherent in N.C.G.S.
§ 15A-269, we incorporated the entirety of the Supreme Court’s Brady-related jurisprudence
in North Carolina’s postconviction DNA testing statute. Any such assumption misreads our
decision in Lane, which did nothing more than utilize a materiality standard deemed
appropriate for use in evaluating claims arising from the State’s failure to disclose
exculpatory evidence to determine whether the defendant had made a sufficient showing to
justify the entry of an order requiring postconviction DNA testing. As a result, the extent to
which a convicted criminal defendant would have the ability to seek relief on the basis of
Brady has no relevance to the proper resolution of the issue of whether a defendant who
entered a guilty plea is entitled, in appropriate instances, to obtain postconviction DNA
testing pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-269.
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Opinion of the Court
that the factual basis presentation that is necessary to support the acceptance of a
guilty plea is less extensive than that needed to support a conviction at a contested
trial on the merits and the risk that allowing defendants who entered guilty pleas to
seek postconviction DNA testing will result in a flood of frivolous applications for such
testing strike us as overstated. Although we acknowledge that our decision may well
result in the filing of additional applications for postconviction DNA testing, the
ability of the trial courts to summarily deny such applications in the event that the
defendant fails to make an adequate initial showing of materiality should limit the
resulting imposition upon the trial judiciary. In addition, we see no reason why the
State should be precluded from submitting additional information bearing upon the
issue of materiality in the event that the information contained in the existing record
is not sufficient to permit the trial court to make an appropriate materiality
determination.
¶ 48 As this Court has previously recognized, “[p]erhaps no interpretive fault is
more common [in statutory construction cases] than the failure to follow the whole-
text canon, which calls on the judicial interpreter to consider the entire text, in view
of its structure and of the physical and logical relation of its many parts.” N.C. Dep’t
of Transp. v. Mission Battleground Park, 370 N.C. 477, 483 (2018) (quoting Antonin
Scalia & Bryan A. Gardner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 167
(2012)). After conducting such a review, we hold that, when read in context and in
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light of its underlying purposes, N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 makes postconviction DNA
testing available to individuals whose convictions rest upon guilty pleas in the event
that those persons are otherwise able to satisfy the relevant statutory requirements.
Any other construction of the relevant statutory language would thwart the General
Assembly’s apparent intent to ensure that individuals who claim to have been
wrongfully convicted and are able to make a credible showing of innocence have the
opportunity to take advantage of a technology that has the potential to both
definitively acquit the innocent and convict the guilty. As a result, for all of these
reasons, we hold that the Court of Appeals did not err in determining that a defendant
who pleads guilty is not disqualified from seeking postconviction DNA testing
pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-269.
C. Materiality of DNA Evidence to Defendant’s Defense
¶ 49 The final issue that must be addressed in evaluating the validity of defendant’s
challenge to the Court of Appeals’ decision to uphold the denial of defendant’s request
for postconviction DNA testing is whether defendant made a sufficient showing of
materiality, which requires defendant to demonstrate that, if the relevant evidence
had been admitted at trial, “there exists a reasonable probability that the verdict
would have been more favorable to the defendant.” N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(a)–(b); Lane,
370 N.C. at 519; see also State v. Byers, 375 N.C. 386, 394 (2020) (construing
“reasonable probability” to mean “a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in
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Opinion of the Court
the outcome” (quoting State v. Allen, 360 N.C. 297, 316 (2006)). The required
“materiality” determination should be made based upon a consideration of the entire
record and focus “upon whether the evidence would have affected the jury’s
deliberations,” Lane, 370 N.C. at 519, with the applicable standard in guilty plea
cases being whether “there is a reasonable probability that DNA testing would have
produced a different outcome; for example, that [the] [d]efendant would not have
pleaded guilty and otherwise would not have been found guilty,” Randall, 259 N.C.
App. at 887 (emphasis in original).
¶ 50 In seeking relief from the Court of Appeals’ decision with respect to the
materiality issue, defendant begins by arguing that the Court of Appeals erred by
requiring him to “show that the requested testing necessarily would exclude his
involvement in the crime.” In addition, defendant contends that the Court of Appeals
“failed to conduct its materiality analysis in the context of the entire record” by
neglecting to consider “highly relevant facts concerning [defendant’s] decision to
plead guilty and the nature of the State’s evidence,” including the fact that defendant
had “repeatedly proclaimed his innocence, went to trial, was very reluctant to plead
guilty, and had a strong alibi.” In light of the fact that he had an alibi and the fact
that the State’s case rested upon the testimony of a “single highly impeachable
purported eyewitness,” defendant asserts that it was reasonably probable that he
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would have been acquitted in the event that he was able to show the presence of third-
party DNA on the shell casings and projectile found at the Amoco station.
¶ 51 According to defendant, the “reasonable probability” test applicable in
postconviction DNA testing proceedings should be distinguished from both a
“preponderance-of-the-evidence” test and a “sufficiency-of-the-evidence” test, with
the Court of Appeals having erred by requiring him to show that “the presence of
another’s DNA or fingerprints on . . . [the] evidence would . . . necessarily exclude
[his] involvement in the crime,” Alexander, 271 N.C. App. at 82, given that this legal
standard is “plainly inconsistent with the Brady standard of materiality this Court
adopted in Lane.” In addition, defendant contends that the Court of Appeals decided
the “materiality” issue based upon what it believed to be “substantial evidence of
[d]efendant’s guilt,” which consisted of (1) Ms. Lashley’s eyewitness testimony; (2)
defendant’s admission to having been at the Amoco station during the investigation
into the robbery and murder; and (3) the admission of guilt inherent in defendant’s
decision to plead guilty, see Alexander, 271 N.C. App. at 81–82, and argues that the
Court of Appeals should have also considered (1) his continued protestations of
innocence and his reluctance to plead guilty; (2) the fact that neither defendant nor
his attorneys knew Ms. Lashley’s identity before the entry of defendant’s guilty plea;
(3) his alibi evidence; (4) his claim that he had not been permitted to enter an Alford
plea; and (5) his claim that his trial counsel had pressured him to plead guilty and
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Opinion of the Court
had told him that he would be released after serving ten years in the event that he
pleaded guilty. As a result, defendant argues that, had the Court of Appeals
conducted a proper materiality analysis, it would have determined that it was
reasonably probable that he would not have entered a guilty plea in the event that
he had been able to prove that third-party DNA had been detected on the shell casings
and the projectile recovered from the Amoco station and that his own had DNA had
not been present on that evidence.
¶ 52 Similarly, defendant contends that, had he elected to plead not guilty and gone
to trial, there is a reasonable probability that he would not have been convicted of
second-degree murder. In defendant’s view, the Court of Appeals erred by assuming
that two people were involved in the robbery and murder of Mr. Boyd based upon Ms.
Lashley’s “highly suspect” testimony, having devoted a substantial portion of his brief
to an attack upon Ms. Lashley’s credibility that focused upon the conflicting accounts
that Ms. Lashley gave of her activities on the day of the robbery and murder, her
claims to have known defendant and his family for a lengthy period of time, and her
failure to select defendant’s image from the photographic array that was shown to
her. As a result, defendant contends that “it is reasonably probable [that] the jury
would have found that she did not witness anything at all; that she was only at the
Amoco [station] after the fact; and that there was only one person involved in the
crime,” with evidence concerning the absence of defendant’s DNA from the shell
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Opinion of the Court
casings and projectile having a tendency to further undermine Ms. Lashley’s
credibility and corroborate his contention that Ms. Lashley did not actually see him
leaving the Amoco station in the aftermath of the robbery and murder.
¶ 53 Aside from his reliance upon what he contends is the suspect quality of Ms.
Lashley’s testimony, defendant points to (1) the lack of forensic evidence linking him
to the crime, (2) the existence of witnesses who could testify that he had been at home
at the time of the murder, (3) the fact that another robbery during which a similar
weapon was used had been committed in the vicinity of the Amoco station earlier that
day, and (4) Mr. Terry’s alleged admission to having robbed and killed Mr. Boyd. In
addition, defendant argues that his presence at the Amoco station in the aftermath
of the robbery and murder had no significance given that “Norlina is a small town
where a murder would [have been] a rare event” and that “there were many other
people that had gathered at the crime scene besides [defendant].” As a result,
defendant claims that “[t]here is more than a reasonable probability . . . that a jury
would not have convicted [defendant] of [the] robbery and murder of [Mr.] Boyd” had
third-party DNA been found on the shell casings and projectile and his own DNA not
been detected.
¶ 54 In seeking to persuade us to uphold the Court of Appeals’ decision with respect
to the materiality issue, the State begins by arguing that, “[w]hile the [Court of
Appeals] did say that the requested testing would not exclude [d]efendant from
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Opinion of the Court
having been involved in the crime, it never said exclusion was the standard for
showing materiality” and that the Court of Appeals had, instead, utilized the
materiality standard articulated in Lane. According to the State, “[d]efendant
himself [ ] introduced the idea that DNA testing would exclude him as the perpetrator
when he stated in his motion that testing showing [Mr.] Terry’s DNA would
‘exculpate’ him.”
¶ 55 Secondly, the State contends that, even though “materiality is analyzed in the
context of the entire record, the record is limited to only the evidence available at the
time of the first trial.” For that reason, the State contends that the only evidence
that this Court can consider in addressing the materiality issue is the testimony of
the witnesses who took the stand at the sentencing hearing, with the only sentencing
hearing evidence that had any bearing upon the issue of defendant’s guilt or
innocence being the testimony of Ms. Lashley. In the State’s view, defendant is not
entitled to rely upon any of the reports generated by investigating officers and
forensic experts prior to the entry of defendant’s guilty plea on the grounds that “[n]o
party authenticated, offered, or moved to admit these items into evidence at any
proceeding” and that, even though “the reports very well may be authentic,” this
Court cannot speculate concerning the manner in which or extent to which any party
might have used those reports at trial. In the same vein, the State contends that the
Court cannot consider testimony from Mr. Alexander, defendant’s father, or Ms.
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Opinion of the Court
Brown, the daughter of Mr. Alexander’s girlfriend, concerning defendant’s location at
the time of the robbery and murder given that they did not testify at defendant’s
sentencing hearing and that the Court should disregard Mr. White’s testimony
concerning Mr. Terry’s alleged involvement in the robbery and murder given that Mr.
White provided this information years after defendant entered his guilty plea.
¶ 56 Finally, the State argues that defendant cannot show that the requested DNA
evidence is material given that “the State’s eyewitness testimony identifying
[d]efendant as one of the two robber-murders was overwhelming and favorable DNA
test results would not contradict that evidence.” According to the State, “the presence
of DNA from someone other than [d]efendant on a shell casing or projectile does not
call into question [d]efendant’s guilt” because “[s]uch results would show at best that
someone other than [d]efendant touched the shell casings or projectile at some time
for some reason that need not have been related to the robbery-murder.” In addition,
the State notes that Ms. Lashley had stated in all three of the accounts that she gave
of her actions on the day of the robbery and murder that, after hearing gunshots, she
had seen defendant and an unknown man leaving the Amoco station and that
defendant had returned to the Amoco station later that day. The State describes Ms.
Lashley’s account of the relevant events as “internally consistent and . . . based on
personal experiences that made her testimony believable,” as even defendant’s trial
counsel had acknowledged. As a result, the State urges us to uphold the Court of
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Opinion of the Court
Appeals’ determination that defendant had failed to make the necessary showing of
materiality.
¶ 57 A careful review of the Court of Appeals’ opinion satisfies us that it did not
misstate or misapply the applicable legal standard. After reciting the “reasonable
probability” standard and noting that the burden of making the necessary showing
of materiality rested upon defendant, the Court of Appeals stated that defendant had
failed to show how it is reasonably probable that he would
not [have] been convicted of at least second-degree murder
based on the results of the DNA and fingerprint testing.
That is, the presence of another’s DNA or fingerprints on
this or other evidence would not necessarily exclude
[d]efendant’s involvement in the crime. The presence of
another’s DNA or fingerprints could be explained by the
possibility that someone else handled the casings/projectile
prior to the crime or that the DNA or fingerprints are from
[d]efendant’s accomplice, as there were two involved in the
murder.
Alexander, 271 N.C. at 81–82. As we read the quoted language, the Court of Appeals
simply stated that defendant had to provide sufficient evidence that he was not
involved in the commission of a second-degree murder in order to show materiality
and that a showing of the presence of a third party’s DNA on the shell casings and
projectile did not, without more, tend to show that defendant had no involvement in
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Opinion of the Court
the killing of Mr. Boyd.12 Nothing in the Court of Appeals’ opinion in any way
suggests that a defendant seeking to obtain postconviction DNA testing is required
to prove that, in the event of favorable test results, the State’s evidence would have
been insufficient to support a conviction or that the defendant would have definitely
been acquitted. Instead, as the Court of Appeals noted, the inquiry that a court
confronted with a request for postconviction DNA testing is required to conduct must
focus upon whether it is “reasonably probable” that the outcome at trial would have
been different. See Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682. As a result, we see nothing exceptional
in the understanding of the applicable legal standard upon which the Court of
Appeals relied in this case.
¶ 58 In addition, defendant has not satisfied us that the Court of Appeals failed to
make its materiality decision “in the context of the entire record.” Lane, 370 N.C. at
519 (quoting State v. Howard, 334 N.C. 602, 605 (1993)). The mere fact that the
Court of Appeals did not address each and every piece of evidence presented by
defendant does not mean that it failed to consider the entire record. Instead, as the
Court of Appeals recognized, the fundamental problem with defendant’s materiality
argument is that it overlooks certain weaknesses in the evidence upon which he relies
In the interest of clarity, we note that our references to the presence of third-party
12
DNA on the shell casings and projectile recovered from the Amoco station assume that
defendant’s DNA is not detected on those items either.
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Opinion of the Court
and fails to recognize that the evidence that he hopes to obtain from the performance
of DNA testing upon the shell casings and projectile has very little bearing upon the
issue of his own involvement in the robbery of the Amoco station and the killing of
Mr. Boyd. Aside from the fact that the State did not need to show that defendant
handled the weapon from which the fatal rounds were fired in order to establish his
guilt, proof of the presence of third-party DNA on the shell casings and projectile
would do nothing more than establish that, at some unspecified point in time,
someone other than defendant touched these items, an event that could have
happened before defendant or his accomplice obtained possession of the weapon or in
the aftermath of the killing of Mr. Boyd at or before the time that the items were
taken into the possession of the investigating officers.13 As a result, since none of
these explanations for the presence of third-party DNA on the shell casings and
projectile would be in any way inconsistent with Ms. Lashley’s contention that she
saw two men, one of whom was defendant, leaving the Amoco station in the aftermath
of the robbery and murder and since defendant would have been guilty of the murder
of Mr. Boyd on an acting in concert theory in the event that he had been present for
and participated in the commission of those crimes even if he had never personally
held the weapon from which the fatal shots were fired, see State v. Barnes, 345 N.C.
13 In view of the fact that the weapon from which the fatal shots were fired was never
recovered, there is no way for postconviction DNA testing to shed any direct light upon the
identity of the person who actually killed Mr. Boyd.
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184, 233 (1997) (holding that, in the event that “two persons join in a purpose to
commit a crime, each of them, if actually or constructively present, is not only guilty
as a principal if the other commits that particular crime, but he is also guilty of any
other crime committed by the other in pursuance of the common purpose” (quoting
State v. Erlewine, 328 N.C. 626, 637 (1991)), we are unable to determine that the
performance of DNA testing on the shell casings and projectile recovered from the
Amoco station would provide material evidence of defendant’s innocence of second-
degree murder.
¶ 59 In addition, we note that Judge Jenkins had the opportunity to hear Ms.
Lashley’s testimony during the sentencing hearing and stated that he found her “to
be fair in her testimony” and that her testimony was “reasonable and consistent with
other believable evidence in the case.” Judge Jenkins’ assessment of Ms. Lashley’s
credibility is reinforced by the actions of defendant’s trial counsel, who made no effort
to obtain authorization to seek the withdrawal of defendant’s guilty plea after hearing
Ms. Lashley testify on direct and cross-examination. See State v. Handy, 326 N.C.
532, 539 (1990) (listing “the strength of the State’s proffer of evidence” as one of the
factors that should be considered in deciding whether to allow a defendant to
withdraw a guilty plea). Finally, we note that, despite the inconsistencies in the
accounts that she gave of her activities on the morning of the robbery and murder,
Ms. Lashley consistently asserted that she had visited the Amoco station on the
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Opinion of the Court
morning in question, that she had heard a commotion inside the store, and that she
had seen two men, one of whom was defendant, leave the service station. As a result,
given the contemporaneous assessments of Ms. Lashley’s testimony as credible; the
fact that most, if not all, of the grounds for challenging the credibility of Ms. Lashley’s
account of her activities on the morning of the robbery and murder were known to
defendant’s trial counsel before the entry of judgment against defendant; and the fact
that the DNA evidence that defendant seeks to obtain in this case would not tend to
undercut the credibility of Ms. Lashley’s contention that defendant was one of the
two men that she saw outside the Amoco station, we cannot conclude that the
performance of the requested DNA testing would have had a material effect upon
defendant’s or a jury’s evaluation of Ms. Lashley’s credibility at the time that Judge
Jenkins entered judgment in this case.
¶ 60 We are also unpersuaded that the availability of evidence tending to provide
defendant with an alibi controls the resolution of the materiality issue that is before
us in this case. All of the witnesses whom defendant claims can corroborate his alibi
were available at the time that defendant decided to enter his guilty plea. In addition,
the existence of evidence tending to show the presence of third-party DNA on the
shell casings and projectile recovered from the Amoco station would not have had any
additional impact upon an evaluation of the credibility of defendant’s alibi witnesses
given the fact that such evidence has little tendency to show that defendant was not
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Opinion of the Court
involved in the robbery of the Amoco station and the murder of Mr. Boyd. The same
is true of the evidence concerning the robbery at the rest area, which has no clear
relation to the issue of defendant’s guilt or innocence of the robbery of the Amoco
station and the murder of Mr. Boyd, particularly given the absence of any non-
hearsay evidence concerning Mr. Terry’s involvement in the commission of the crime
which led to the entry of defendant’s guilty plea, the fact that Mr. Terry has denied
any involvement in the commission of this crime, and the fact that evidence
implicating Mr. Terry does not tend to exculpate defendant given Ms. Lashley’s claim
to have seen two men leaving the Amoco station. See Barnes, 345 N.C. at 233.14
¶ 61 At the end of the day, this case is not materially different from Lane, in which
the defendant was convicted of the kidnapping, rape, and first-degree murder of a
five-year-old girl. Lane, 370 N.C. at 509, 513–14. In seeking postconviction DNA
testing of hair samples taken from the trash bag in which the victim’s body was
discovered, the defendant in Lane argued that DNA testing “could potentially relate
14 We do agree with defendant that the Court of Appeals should not have considered
the fact that he entered a guilty plea in making the required materiality determination or
treated it as “substantial evidence” of guilt in light of the fact that the relevant issue for
purposes of requests for postconviction DNA testing submitted by persons who entered guilty
pleas is whether the new evidence would have impacted defendant’s decision to plead guilty
in the first place. The same is true, however, of defendant’s persistence in proclaiming his
innocence and his reluctance to enter a plea of guilty. Instead, the required materiality
determination should focus upon the strength of the substantive evidence of defendant’s guilt
and the likely impact that the results of the requested DNA testing would have had upon
defendant’s decision to plead guilty and upon defendant’s chances for success at a subsequent
trial on the merits.
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Opinion of the Court
to another perpetrator, and potentially the only perpetrator of [the] murder.” Id. at
516. In rejecting the defendant’s challenge to the trial court’s determination that he
had failed “to show that the requested postconviction DNA testing of hair samples
[was] material to his defense,” we pointed to “the additional overwhelming evidence
of defendant’s guilt presented at trial,” the absence “of evidence at trial pointing to a
second perpetrator,” and “the inability of forensic testing to determine whether the
hair samples at issue are relevant to establish a third party was involved” in the
commission of the crimes for which the defendant was convicted. Id. at 516–20. In
determining that, “even if the hair samples in question were tested and found not to
belong to the victim or defendant, they would not necessarily implicate another
individual as a second perpetrator,” we emphasized the fact that the defendant had
not shown that the hair samples had been put into the trash bag at the time of the
crime and that “there was great potential for contamination of the hole-ridden,
weathered trash bag.” Id. at 522. Although the evidence of defendant’s guilt in this
case is not as strong as the evidence of the defendant’s guilt in Lane, the relevance of
the requested DNA evidence in the two cases is strikingly similar and suggests that
the two cases should be resolved in the same manner.
¶ 62 The ultimate question that must be decided in resolving the materiality issue
that is before use in this case is whether, all else remaining the same, a favorable
DNA test result would have (1) probably caused defendant to refrain from pleading
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Opinion of the Court
guilty and (2) probably resulted in a verdict that was more favorable to defendant at
any ensuing trial. After conducting the required analysis, we conclude that the
presence of third-party DNA on the shell casings and projectile recovered from the
Amoco station would have done little, if anything, to improve defendant’s odds of
achieving a more successful outcome than he actually obtained as a result of his guilty
plea given the applicable legal standard, which focuses upon whether defendant
actively participated in the robbery and murder that led to his conviction rather than
upon whether defendant was the person that fired the fatal shots, and the fact that
the availability of such evidence would had little tendency to show that defendant
would have been better positioned to mount a successful defense to the charges that
had been lodged against him or upon a jury’s evaluation of the credibility and weight
that should be given to the other available evidence, including the credibility of Ms.
Lashley’s testimony that she saw defendant leaving the Amoco station immediately
after gunshots emanating from that location had been heard. As a result, we hold
that the Court of Appeals did not err by concluding that defendant had failed to make
the showing of materiality necessary to support an award of postconviction DNA
testing.
III. Conclusion
¶ 63 Thus, for the reasons set forth above, we hold that a defendant who enters a
plea of guilty is not statutorily disqualified from seeking postconviction DNA testing
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Opinion of the Court
pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-269. We further hold, however, that defendant has failed
to establish that the requested DNA testing would be material to his defense in this
case. As a result, the decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
Justice BERGER did not participate in the consideration or decision of this
case.
Chief Justice NEWBY concurring in the result.
¶ 64 I agree with the majority’s ultimate decision to uphold the trial court’s denial
of defendant’s motion to test DNA evidence. I write separately, however, because I
would hold that a defendant who pleads guilty cannot prevail on a postconviction
motion to test DNA evidence under N.C.G.S. § 15A-269.1 Therefore, I concur in the
result.
¶ 65 N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 provides in relevant part:
(a) A defendant may make a motion before the
trial court that entered the judgment of conviction against
the defendant for performance of DNA testing and, if
testing complies with FBI requirements and the data
meets NDIS criteria, profiles obtained from the testing
shall be searched and/or uploaded to CODIS if the
biological evidence meets all of the following conditions:
(1) Is material to the defendant’s defense.
(2) Is related to the investigation or prosecution
that resulted in the judgment.
(3) Meets either of the following conditions:
a. It was not DNA tested previously.
b. It was tested previously, but the
requested DNA test would provide
results that are significantly more
accurate and probative of the identity
of the perpetrator or accomplice or have
a reasonable probability of
Were I to reach the issue of whether defendant made the necessary showing of
1
materiality in this case, I would agree with the majority’s analysis, except for the majority’s
statement in footnote fourteen of its opinion.
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Newby, C.J., concurring in the result
contradicting prior test results.
(b) The court shall grant the motion for DNA
testing . . . upon its determination that:
(1) The conditions set forth in subdivisions (1),
(2), and (3) of subsection (a) of this section
have been met;
(2) If the DNA testing being requested had been
conducted on the evidence, there exists a
reasonable probability that the verdict would
have been more favorable to the defendant;
and
(3) The defendant has signed a sworn affidavit of
innocence.
N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 (2021) (emphases added). “The primary endeavor of courts in
construing a statute is to give effect to legislative intent. . . . If the statutory language
is clear and unambiguous, the court eschews statutory construction in favor of giving
the words their plain and definite meaning.” State v. Beck, 359 N.C. 611, 614, 614
S.E.2d 274, 276–77 (2005) (citations omitted).
¶ 66 A plain reading of N.C.G.S. § 15A-269 demonstrates that a defendant who
pleads guilty cannot meet the conditions necessary to prevail on a motion to test DNA
evidence. First, a defendant who enters a guilty plea cannot show that “[i]f the DNA
testing being requested had been conducted on the evidence, there exists a reasonable
probability that the verdict would have been more favorable to the defendant.”
N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(b)(2). In order for a trier of fact to reach a verdict in a criminal
case, there must first be a trial. See State v. Hemphill, 273 N.C. 388, 389, 160 S.E.2d
STATE V. ALEXANDER
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Newby, C.J., concurring in the result
53, 55 (1968) (“A verdict is the unanimous decision made by the jury and reported to
the court.”). As such, the occurrence of a trial is a prerequisite to prevailing on a
motion to test DNA evidence under N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(b)(2). When a defendant
pleads guilty, no trial occurs, and thus no verdict is ever reached. Therefore, a
defendant who pleads guilty can never meet the condition outlined in N.C.G.S.
§ 15A-269(b)(2).
¶ 67 Second, a defendant who enters a guilty plea cannot show that the relevant
biological evidence “[i]s material to [his] defense.” N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(a)(1). The
phrase “material to the defendant’s defense” presupposes that the defendant making
the motion presented a defense before the trial court. Since a sample of biological
evidence cannot be material to a defense that never occurred, a defendant who did
not present a defense before the trial court cannot meet the condition outlined in
N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(a)(1).
¶ 68 When a defendant pleads guilty, he fails to present a “defense” pursuant to
N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(a)(1). In State v. Sayre, the “defendant pleaded guilty to fourteen
counts of taking indecent liberties with a child, two counts of second[-]degree sexual
offense, and two counts of felony child abuse.” State v. Sayre, No. COA17-68, 2017
WL 3480951, at *1 (N.C. Ct. App. Aug. 15, 2017) (unpublished). The defendant later
filed a motion to test DNA evidence which the trial court denied. Id. The Court of
Appeals noted that the “defendant’s bare assertion that testing the identified
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Newby, C.J., concurring in the result
evidence would ‘prove that [he] is not the perpetrator of the crimes’ is not sufficiently
specific to establish that the requested DNA testing would be material to his defense.”
Id. at *2 (alteration in original) (citing State v. Cox, 245 N.C. App. 307, 312, 781
S.E.2d 865, 868–69 (2016)). The Court of Appeals also stated that “by entering into a
plea agreement with the State and pleading guilty, defendant presented no ‘defense’
pursuant to N.C.[G.S.] § 15A-269(a)(1).” Id. As such, the Court of Appeals held “the
trial court did not err by summarily denying defendant’s request for post-conviction
DNA testing.” Id. The defendant appealed to this Court based upon the dissenting
opinion at the Court of Appeals, and we issued a per curiam opinion affirming the
Court of Appeals’ decision. State v. Sayre, 371 N.C. 468, 818 S.E.2d 101 (2018) (per
curiam).2
¶ 69 The majority asserts that the term “defense” is not “limited to the specific
arguments that the defendant advanced before the trial court prior to his or her
conviction.” According to the majority, a “defense” includes “any argument that might
have been available to a defendant to preclude a conviction or establish guilt for a
lesser offense.” The majority’s primary support for this position is that the New
2 The majority asserts that our per curiam opinion did not affirm the Court of Appeals’
statement regarding the defendant’s presentation of a “defense” because that issue was not
on appeal. Notably, however, in his brief before this Court, the defendant in Sayre argued
that his guilty plea should not preclude him from establishing materiality. In response, the
State argued that based upon the plain language of the statute, it is impossible for a
defendant who pleads guilty to show materiality. Nevertheless, even if our decision did not
affirm the Court of Appeals’ statement, the statement is still persuasive.
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Newby, C.J., concurring in the result
Oxford American Dictionary broadly defines “defense” as an “attempted justification
or vindication of something.” More specifically, however, Black’s Law Dictionary
defines “defense” as “[a] defendant’s stated reason why the . . . prosecutor has no valid
case; esp., a defendant’s . . . plea .” Defense, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019)
(emphases added). This definition makes clear that a defendant’s “defense” refers to
the arguments that he actually made at trial. See id. Nonetheless, the majority adopts
an overbroad definition of “defense” in an effort to expand the applicability of
N.C.G.S. § 15A-269. The majority’s interpretation effectively changes the statutory
language from “material to the defendant’s defense,” N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(a)(1), to
“material to any defense the defendant possibly could have presented, whether
actually raised or not.” Such an interpretation disregards this Court’s duty to give
“the words [of a statute] their plain and definite meaning.” Beck, 359 N.C. at 614, 614
S.E.2d at 277.
¶ 70 Defendant here entered a guilty plea and indicated to the trial court that he
was “in fact guilty.” Due to defendant’s guilty plea, a trier of fact did not reach a
“verdict,” and defendant never provided a “defense.” Since defendant cannot meet the
conditions outlined in N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(a)(1) and (b)(2), he is precluded from
prevailing on his motion to test DNA evidence. Therefore, I concur in the result.
Justice BARRINGER joins in this concurring opinion.
Justice EARLS concurring in part and dissenting in part.
¶ 71 I concur fully in the portion of the majority opinion holding that defendants
who enter a guilty plea are eligible to seek postconviction DNA testing under N.C.G.S.
§ 15A-269. In addition to the majority’s careful and correct examination of the
statutory text, the circumstances surrounding the statute’s enactment, and the
abundant evidence of legislative intent, the majority’s description of the practical
realities as experienced by criminal defendants faced with the choice between
entering a guilty plea and going to trial illustrates why a statute titled “An Act to
Assist an Innocent Person Charged With or Wrongly Convicted of a Criminal Offense
in Establishing the Person’s Innocence” cannot be read to categorically exclude
defendants who have pleaded guilty. S.L. 2001-282, § 4, 2001 N.C. Sess. Laws 833,
837.
¶ 72 The majority notes that defendants “ ‘fear’ that they will be treated more
harshly if they insist upon pleading not guilty and going to trial.” There is reason to
believe defendants’ fears are well-founded. See, e.g., Brian D. Johnson, Plea-Trial
Differences in Federal Punishment: Research and Policy Implications, 31 Fed. Sent.
R. 256, 257 (2019) (“On average, trial conviction increases the odds of incarceration
by two to six times and produces sentence lengths that are 20 to 60 percent longer. . . .
Federal defendants are typically two to three times more likely to go to prison and
receive incarceration terms from one-sixth to two-thirds longer, even after adjusting
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Earls, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part
for other relevant sentencing criteria. . . . [T]rial cases are twice as likely to result in
imprisonment, with average sentences that are more than 50 percent longer.”
(citations omitted)); Steven A. Drizin & Richard A. Leo, The Problem of False
Confessions in the Post-DNA World, 82 N.C. L. Rev. 891, 923 (2004) (“At sentencing,
trial judges are conditioned to punish defendants for claiming innocence (the logical
extension of not accepting the prosecutor’s plea bargain and sparing the State the
expense of a jury trial) and for failing to express remorse or apologize for his
wrongdoings.”). Further, there is evidence that defendants who have experienced
trauma or have been victimized themselves may be especially susceptible to pressure
to plead guilty, even believing at the time that they are at fault despite there being
legally cognizable defenses to exonerate them. See Andrew D. Leipold, How the
Pretrial Process Contributes to Wrongful Convictions, 42 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1123, 1125
n.8 (2005) (“Some defendants fail to assist in their defense or are willing to plead
guilty because they are afraid, because they have no confidence in defense counsel,
because they are trying to spare their loved ones the trauma of trial, or because they
are mentally challenged.”). As Justice Scalia observed, the plea-bargaining system
“presents grave risks of prosecutorial overcharging that effectively compels an
innocent defendant to avoid massive risk by pleading guilty to a lesser offense.” Lafler
v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156, 185 (2012) (Scalia, J., dissenting). Thus, it should be no
surprise that, for entirely rational and comprehensible reasons, actually innocent
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Earls, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part
people plead guilty. See, e.g., Brandon L. Garrett, Convicting the Innocent: Where
Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong 150–53 (2011) (noting that of the first 330 DNA
exonerations, eight percent, or twenty-seven, had pleaded guilty).
¶ 73 Against this backdrop, it is fallacious to contend that allowing a defendant who
has previously pleaded guilty to assert actual innocence would “make ‘a mockery’ of
the General Assembly’s postconviction DNA procedure.” Our criminal justice system
seeks finality, but it makes no pretenses to infallibility. Depriving defendants with
credible actual innocence claims of an opportunity to demonstrate their innocence on
the basis of a strained interpretation of a remedial statute is inconsistent with that
statute and with the values our criminal justice system strives to uphold. Of course,
the State has an interest in enforcing procedural mechanisms designed to filter out
frivolous claims in order to promote the efficient administration of justice. But
ultimately, the point is to administer justice, and there is no justice in consigning an
actually innocent defendant to a life in prison or worse. To imply that such a
defendant deserves his fate because he was one of the overwhelming majority of
criminal defendants who resolve their case through plea bargaining is willfully blind
to reality and to the problems the General Assembly set out to address in enacting
N.C.G.S. § 15A-269.
¶ 74 However, while I agree with the majority that defendants who plead guilty are
not categorically ineligible for postconviction DNA testing under N.C.G.S. § 15A-269,
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Earls, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part
I cannot join the majority in its conclusion that this defendant has failed to
demonstrate materiality within the meaning of the statute. The majority is correct
that N.C.G.S. § 15A-269(b) requires Alexander to demonstrate “a reasonable
probability that the verdict would have been more favorable to the defendant” if the
DNA evidence he seeks had been admitted at a trial. But the majority errs in its
application of this standard in the present case.
¶ 75 Alexander did not, as the majority suggests, need to “provide sufficient
evidence that he was not involved in the commission of second-degree murder in order
to show materiality”—that is, the burden was not on Alexander to exculpate himself
in order to establish his entitlement to DNA testing. At this stage of proceedings,
under N.C.G.S. § 15A-269, a court is not deciding whether Alexander is actually
innocent and should be released. The court is only deciding whether to allow
postconviction DNA testing. Thus, in assessing materiality, the court considers the
potential impact of the evidence had the evidence been available at the time
Alexander entered his guilty plea, and at a subsequent trial where the burden would
be on the State to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If there is a reasonable
probability that admission of the requested DNA evidence would cause Alexander not
to plead guilty to second-degree murder and cause a jury not to find Alexander guilty
of that crime, then he has satisfied his burden of proving materiality, regardless of
whether or not he has brought forth affirmative evidence of his innocence at this time.
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Earls, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part
¶ 76 The majority correctly explains that “ ‘[m]ateriality’ as used in the statutory
provisions governing postconviction DNA testing should be understood in the same
way that ‘materiality’ is understood in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and
its progeny.” Yet the majority’s application of the materiality standard in this case
imposes a significantly heavier burden on Alexander than what Brady and its
progeny require. For example, in Kyles v. Whitley, the United States Supreme Court
explained that evidence can be material within the meaning of Brady even if it does
not establish that there is insufficient evidence to sustain a defendant’s conviction.
514 U.S. 419, 434–35 (1995) (“[M]ateriality . . . is not a sufficiency of evidence test. A
defendant need not demonstrate that after discounting the inculpatory evidence in
light of the undisclosed evidence, there would not have been enough left to convict.”).
A defendant must demonstrate that the evidence creates “[t]he possibility of an
acquittal on a criminal charge,” not that there is “an insufficient evidentiary basis to
convict.” Id. at 435. Requiring defendants to prove their innocence at this stage of the
proceedings is simply inconsistent with the materiality standard the majority
purports to apply and its purpose, which is to weed out frivolous claims.
¶ 77 Applying the proper materiality standard, I would hold that Alexander has
demonstrated a reasonable probability that he “would not have pleaded guilty and
otherwise would not have been found guilty.” State v. Randall, 259 N.C. App. 885,
887 (2018) (emphasis omitted). In assessing materiality, we assess the impact of the
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Earls, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part
DNA evidence “in the context of the entire record.” State v. Lane, 370 N.C. 508, 519
(2018) (quoting State v. Howard, 334 N.C. 602, 605 (1993)). Here, the “context of the
entire record” makes clear that the presence of another person’s fingerprints on shell
casings and a bullet found at the scene of Carl Boyd’s killing is material within the
meaning of N.C.G.S. § 15A-269.
¶ 78 With respect to Alexander’s guilty plea, a court “is obligated to consider the
facts surrounding a defendant’s decision to plead guilty in addition to other evidence,
in the context of the entire record of the case, in order to determine whether the
evidence is ‘material.’ ” Randall, 259 N.C. App. at 887. In this case, it is salient that
at the time he pleaded guilty, Alexander was facing the death penalty, had no insight
into potential weaknesses in the State’s case, had an alibi defense corroborated by
witness testimony, and was under the impression that he would serve ten years in
prison if he agreed to the plea bargain being offered. What Alexander lacked at the
time he entered his plea was any physical evidence tending to detract from the State’s
theory of the case that he was the shooter. Absent such evidence, the pressure to
plead guilty rather than face a capital trial was overwhelming, regardless of the
strength or weakness of the State’s case. With DNA evidence that would, at a
minimum, provide some evidentiary basis for Alexander’s assertion that someone
other than him was the shooter, there is a significantly greater chance that he would
have been willing to forego the plea bargain and take his chances at trial.
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Earls, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part
Alternatively, evidence tending to detract from the State’s theory of guilt might have
caused prosecutors to offer a plea bargain presenting Alexander with more favorable
terms on less serious charges.
¶ 79 Had Alexander proceeded to trial, DNA evidence demonstrating that another
person handled shell casings and a projectile found at the crime scene would likely
have had a significant effect on the jury’s deliberations. See Lane, 370 N.C. at 519
(“The determination of materiality . . . hinges upon whether the evidence would have
affected the jury’s deliberations.”). Again, while the presence of third-party DNA on
the shell casings and projectile would not exclude the possibility that Alexander shot
Boyd, it could reasonably have caused the jury to doubt the State’s account of how
Alexander supposedly perpetrated the crime, especially if Alexander’s DNA was also
not found on the shell casings and projectile. The majority’s rejoinder is that
Alexander still could have been convicted on an acting in concert theory of guilt “even
if he had never personally held the weapon from which the fatal shots were fired,”
but there is at present no evidence in the record indicating that Alexander joined with
another person “in a purpose to commit a crime.” State v. Barnes, 345 N.C. 184, 233
(1997) (quoting State v. Erlewine, 328 N.C. 626, 637 (1991)). The State may have
ultimately been able to negate the impact of the DNA evidence and secure
Alexander’s conviction for second-degree murder on an acting in concert theory, but
it should be obvious that physical evidence supporting the inference that someone
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Earls, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part
other than Alexander pulled the trigger would be extremely relevant in Alexander’s
trial for second-degree murder.
¶ 80 The DNA evidence Alexander seeks would, if it shows what he believes it
shows, provide evidentiary support for the reasonable determination that someone
other than Alexander was the shooter. The evidence would not conclusively establish
Alexander’s innocence, but that is not the burden he must carry at this stage. Instead,
he must only demonstrate that with the DNA evidence he seeks there would have
been a reasonable probability that he would not have pleaded guilty to second-degree
murder and would not have been convicted of the same had he proceeded to trial.
Here, given that the State’s case was not overwhelming, DNA testing “could
reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine
confidence in the verdict.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 419. Accordingly, while I agree with the
majority that Alexander and all defendants who plead guilty are eligible to seek DNA
testing under N.C.G.S. § 15A-269, I would hold that evidence which could support the
inference that a defendant convicted of second-degree murder was not the shooter is
material within the meaning of that statute. Accordingly, I respectfully concur in part
and dissent in part.