The court agreed with the court of appeals’ decision in State v. Sargeant, 206 N.C. App. 1 (Aug. 3, 2010), which had held, over a dissent, that the trial court erred by taking a partial verdict. However, because the court concluded that a new trial was warranted on account of a prejudicial ruling on an unrelated evidence issue, it did not analyze whether the verdict error was prejudicial. The court of appeals’ decision described the verdict issue as follows. The defendant was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and burning of personal property. At the end of the first day of deliberations, the jury had not reached a unanimous decision as to each of the charges. The trial court asked the jury to submit verdict sheets for any of the charges for which it had unanimously found the defendant guilty. The trial court then received the jury’s verdicts finding the defendant guilty of first-degree kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and burning of personal property, as well as first-degree murder on the bases of both felony murder and lying in wait. The only issue left for the jury to decide was whether the defendant was guilty of first-degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation. The next morning, the court gave the jury a new verdict sheet asking only whether the defendant was guilty of first-degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation. The jury returned a guilty verdict later that day. The court of appeals concluded that the trial court erred by taking a verdict as to lying in wait and felony murder when the jury had not yet agreed on premeditation and deliberation. It reasoned that premeditation and deliberation, felony murder, and lying in wait are not crimes, but rather theories of first-degree murder and the trial court cannot take a verdict on a theory. Therefore, the court of appeals concluded, the trial court erred by taking partial verdicts on theories of first-degree murder. As noted above, the supreme court agreed that error occurred but declined to assess whether it was prejudicial.