Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (Dec. 21, 2021)

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on December 21, 2021. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present. This is the final post of the year. Thanks to all of our readers for engaging with the blog this year, we hope that everyone has a safe and happy holiday season. In a second-degree murder case, the trial court did not err by omitting a jury instruction on the defense of accident or by sentencing the defendant as a Class B1 felon State v. Crisp, ___ N.C. App. ___, 2021-NCCOA-697 (Dec. 21, 2021).  In this second-degree murder case where the defendant’s girlfriend was fatally shot in the eye with a pistol, the trial court did not err by omitting a jury instruction on the defense of accident or by sentencing the defendant as a Class B1 felon.  The trial court did not err by omitting an instruction on the defense of accident because the defendant testified that he did not commit the shooting or witness it and that he was unsure how it happened.  The defendant’s testimony “flatly contradicted” the evidence suggesting he was involved in an arguably accidental shooting.  The Court explained that the defendant could not “simultaneously deny that he committed the shooting and claim that he accidentally committed the shooting.” As to the sentencing issue, while a general verdict of guilty for second-degree murder is [...]