In this Randolph County case,  the Court of Appeals upheld defendant’s conviction for solicitation to commit first-degree murder, finding no prejudicial error by the trial court.

In 2018, defendant, a high school student, confessed to his girlfriend that he had homicidal thoughts towards several of his fellow students, and attempted to recruit his girlfriend to help him act on them. His girlfriend showed the messages they exchanged to her mother and the school resource officer, leading to further investigation that found defendant had a cache of guns and knives, as well as a detailed list of persons he wished to kill and methods he would use. When the matter came to trial, the state offered testimony from 11 of the 13 persons on the kill list, and during closing arguments made reference to the “current events” that were presumably mass shootings at high schools. Defendant was subsequently convicted in 2020.

Reviewing the appeal, the court first considered (a) defendant’s motion to dismiss for insufficient evidence, reviewing whether defendant solicited his girlfriend for the crime. The court found sufficient evidence of solicitation, explaining that solicitation is an “attempt to conspire,” and the offense does not require fully communicating the details of the plan. Instead, once defendant proposed the killings he had planned to his girlfriend, and attempted to recruit her to assist, the offense was complete, despite the fact that he did not fully share his detailed plans. Slip Op. at 12-13.

The court next considered (b), dismissing defendant’s argument that the indictment fatally varied from the jury instruction; the court found that this was actually an attempt to present an instructional error “within the Trojan horse of a fatal variance.” Id. at 15. Considering (c), the court disagreed with defendant’s allegation that Rules of Evidence 401 and 402 barred admission of defendant’s drawings and notes of the Joker and weapons, and testimony from 11 of the potential victims. The drawings were relevant to show defendant’s state of mind and evaluate the nature of the potential crime, and the testimony was relevant to show the potential victims were real people and that defendant had the specific intent to commit the crime. Id. at 17-18. The court also considered (d) whether Rule of Evidence 403 barred admission of this evidence as prejudicial, finding no abuse of discretion as “the evidence served a probative function arguably above and beyond inflaming [the jury’s passions].” Id. at 20.

Considering the final issue (e), whether the trial court should have intervened ex mero moto during the state’s closing argument, the court found error but not prejudicial error. The court found error in the state’s closing argument when the prosecutor “appealed to the jury’s sympathies by describing the nature of the Joker and insinuating that [d]efendant was planning a mass shooting.” Id. at 25. The court presumed that these statements were intended to suggest that defendant’s conviction would assist in preventing another mass shooting, but noted that they did not rise to the level of prejudicial error due to the other factual details in the argument, and the “multiple items of physical evidence and segments of testimony evidencing [d]efendant’s intent.” Id. at 28.

In this Guilford County case, defendant appealed his convictions for first-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a felon, arguing the trial court erred by (1) denying his motions to dismiss, (2) giving an improper jury instruction on deliberation, and (3) failing to give defendant’s requested “stand your ground” instruction. The Court of Appeals found no error.

In 2017, defendant was at a house drinking alcohol with two other men when an argument broke out between defendant and the eventual victim. The victim yelled in defendant’s face and spit on him, threatening to kill defendant the next time he saw him. Notably, the victim’s threat was to kill defendant at a later time, and the victim stated he would not do so in the house where they were drinking. After the victim yelled in defendant’s face, defendant drew a pistol and shot the victim six times; defendant fled the scene and did not turn himself in until 18 days later.

Reviewing the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motions to dismiss, the court noted that “evidence of a verbal altercation does not serve to negate a charge of first-degree murder when ‘there was other evidence sufficient to support the jury’s finding of both deliberation and premeditation.’” Slip Op. at 8, quoting State v. Watson, 338 N.C. 168, 178 (1994). The court found such evidence in the instant case, with defendant’s prior history of quarrels with the victim, the number of gunshots, defendant’s fleeing the scene and remaining on the run for 18 days, and with defendant’s statements to his girlfriend regarding his intention to deny the charges.

The court then turned to the disputed jury instructions, first explaining that defendant’s request for an additional explanation on deliberation beyond that contained in Pattern Jury Instruction 206.1 was based on a dissenting opinion in State v. Patterson, 288 N.C. 553 (1975) which carried no force of law, and the instruction given contained adequate explanation of the meaning of “deliberation” for first-degree murder. Slip Op. at 11. The court next considered the “stand your ground” instruction, comparing the trial court’s instruction on self-defense to the version offered by defendant. Looking to State v. Benner, 380 N.C. 621 (2022), the court found that “the use of deadly force cannot be excessive and must still be proportional even when the defendant has no duty to retreat and is entitled to stand his ground.” Slip Op. at 14. The court also noted that the “stand your ground” statute requires proportionality in defendant’s situation, explaining “[d]efendant could use deadly force against the victim under [N.C.G.S. §] 14-51.3(a) only if it was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm, i.e., if it was proportional.” Id. at 16-17. Finally, the court determined that even if the trial court erred in failing to give the instruction, it was not prejudicial, as overwhelming evidence in the record showed that defendant was not under threat of imminent harm, noting “[l]ethal force is not a proportional response to being spit on.” Id. at 17.

In this Burke County case, the defendant appealed after he was found guilty by a jury of first-degree murder. The case arose out of an altercation between the defendant and his apartment neighbor, Hubert Hunter, Jr. After Hunter was found dead in his own apartment, a maintenance worker found a plastic bag containing bloodstained clothing and a kitchen knife in a dumpster behind the apartment building. DNA on the knife matched the victim and DNA on the clothing matched the defendant. A medical examination of the victim showed that he had three stabbing and slashing wounds to his neck, one of which was deep enough to fracture his spine, as well as hemorrhaging of blood vessels indicating that the ultimate cause of death was strangulation. Law enforcement interviewed the defendant multiple times. He first denied fighting with Hunter, but later said that he had gone to Hunter’s apartment to collect $3 Hunter owed him, which led to a fight in which the victim “pulled a knife.” The defendant admitted to choking the victim as they wrestled in an attempt to make him pass out and stop fighting, but said that he was struggling in self-defense after the victim grabbed the knife and that any stabbing was incidental. The defendant also claimed that he himself passed out during the struggle. The defendant was convicted of first-degree murder and appealed. 

(1) The defendant first argued that the trial court erred by denying his motion to dismiss based on insufficient evidence of premeditation and deliberation. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court did not err in dismissing the motion. The evidence showed the defendant threatened the victim, beat him severely, did not seek medical assistance after the fight, and attempted to cover up the killing by disposing of his bloodied clothes and the knife. The Court rejected the defendant’s contention that his own black out undermined the State’s theory of premeditation and deliberation and instead showed he acted in a state of passion; other evidence sufficed to submit the issue to the jury, and it was for them to weigh the evidence presented.

(2) The defendant next argued that the trial court committed plain error by failing to instruct the jury on the defense of automatism in light of the defendant’s statement that he blacked out during the altercation with the victim. The Court of Appeals disagreed, noting that the only evidence of the defendant blacking out came from his own self-serving statements, which, moreover, were contradicted by his other statements and general ability to recall the details of the fight. Because the defendant’s statements about blacking out were insufficient to satisfy a reasonable jury that he lacked consciousness, the trial court did not plainly err by failing to give the instruction.

(3) Next, the defendant argued that the trial court erred by failing to intervene ex mero motu in the State’s questioning of prospective jurors. The State’s questions included hypothetical questions like “If you were in fear for your life and had a weapon, would you defend yourself or would you run away?” The Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in failing to intervene because the State’s questions did not stake jurors out by asking them to consider specific circumstances and forecast their ultimate verdict.

(4) Finally, the defendant argued that the trial court erred by not intervening ex mero motu during closing arguments when the State claimed that the defendant, not the victim, handled the knife, thereby misleading the jury on the central issue of self-defense. The Court of Appeals disagreed, concluding that trial court did not err when the State’s arguments drew reasonable inferences from the evidence and did not rely on evidence outside the trial record.

Having rejected each of the defendant’s arguments, the Court concluded that the defendant’s trial was free from error.

In this murder case, there was sufficient evidence of premeditation and deliberation. The evidence showed that the victim suffered from a heart condition and other ailments. In the months before his death, the defendant and the victim--who were married--were arguing about financial issues. The defendant began a romantic relationship with her therapist and planned to ask the victim for divorce. A search of the home computer discovered Internet searches including “upon death of the veteran,” “can tasers kill people,” “can tasers kill people with a heart condition,” “what is the best handgun for under $200,” “death in absentia USA,” and “declare someone dead if missing 3 years.” On the date of death, the defendant visited her nephew, expressed concern about her safety due to break-ins in her neighborhood, and received from her nephew a gun and a knife. Shortly after that, she returned home and asked the victim to go on a drive with her. The defendant took the gun and knife in the car and used the weapons to kill the victim, shooting him and stabbing him approximately 12 times. Later in the day, the defendant messaged her therapist “it’s almost done” and “it got ugly.” After the incident, the defendant got rid of her bloodstained clothing, threw away the victim’s medications and identification, and said that he had either gone to Florida or was at a rehabilitation center.

In this first-degree murder case there was sufficient evidence of premeditation and deliberation. Among other things, the evidence showed a lack of provocation by the victim, that just prior to the shooting the defendant told others that he was going to shoot a man over a trivial matter, that the defendant shot the victim 3 times and that the victim may have been turning away from or trying to escape at the time.

In this first-degree murder case, the evidence was sufficient to show premeditation and deliberation. After some words in a night club parking lot the defendant shot the victim, who was unarmed, had not reached for a weapon, had not engaged the defendant in a fight, and did nothing to provoke the defendant’s violent response. After the victim fell from the defendant’s first shot, the defendant shot the victim 6 more times. Instead of then trying to help the victim, the defendant left the scene and attempted to hide evidence.

The State presented sufficient evidence that the defendant acted with premeditation and deliberation where, among other things, the defendant did not want a second child and asked his wife to get an abortion, he was involved in a long-term extramarital affair with a another woman who testified that the defendant was counting down the seconds until his first child would go to college so that he could leave his wife, the defendant had made plans to move out of his martial home but reacted angrily when his wife suggested that if the couple divorced she might move out of the state and take the children with her, and shortly before he shot his wife, he placed her cell phone out of her reach.