State v. Cruz, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (Jul. 7, 2020)

The defendant was convicted of accessory after the fact to a felony and felony obstruction of justice in Cleveland County relating to her efforts to assist a murder suspect (later convicted of second-degree murder) evade capture. (1) The defendant argued the statutory offense of accessory after the fact abrogated the common law offense of obstruction of justice in part, such that she could not be convicted of both. The North Carolina Supreme Court previously rejected this argument inIn re Kivett, 309 N.C. 635, 670 (1983), which defeated this claim. The defendant also argued that the two offenses were the same for purposes of double jeopardy, in that they are greater- and lesser-included offenses of each other. This argument has also been rejected by the prior decisions of the Court of Appeals, as the offenses have different elements: “This Court has expressly held that accessory after the fact and obstruction of justice do not constitute the same offense, and that neither is a lesser-included offense of the other.” Cruz Slip op. at 9 (citation omitted). Substantial evidence supported each instruction as well. As to the accessory conviction, the evidence showed the defendant provided personal assistance to the suspect while knowing he was wanted for murder. As to the obstruction conviction, the defendant lied to detectives about seeing or communicating with the suspect and deleted information from her phone showing she was in communication with him after police expressed an interest in her phone. This evidence was sufficient to support the instructions for each offense and the trial court did not err by so instructing the jury.

(2) The trial court did not commit plain error by failing to instruct the jury that if the defendant believed the killing was done in self-defense, she could not be convicted of accessory after the fact. Even if the defendant believed the killing was justified, the evidence here was sufficient to raise “a reasonable inference that the [D]efendant knew precisely what had taken place,” as she had notice of the suspect’s outstanding arrest warrant for murder at the time of her assistance to the defendant and her deceptions to law enforcement. The convictions were therefore unanimously affirmed.