In this Guilford County case, defendant appealed his convictions for breaking and entering, larceny, possession of a firearm by a felon, and resisting a public officer, arguing error in (1) denying his request for a jury instruction on voluntary intoxication, and (2) not specifically identifying the firearm during the jury instruction for possession of a firearm by a felon. The Court of Appeals disagreed, finding no error. 

In May of 2021, defendant and an accomplice broke into a pharmacy; after police responded, the men fled the pharmacy, and defendant dropped a gun in the parking lot while running from the officers. After searching the vehicle left at the scene, police found two more firearms and other stolen goods. After defendant was indicted, he filed a notice of defense asserting that he was too intoxicated to form the necessary specific intent for the offenses. During the charge conference, the trial court denied defendant’s request for a jury instruction on voluntary intoxication. Defendant was subsequently convicted, and appealed.

Taking up (1), the Court of Appeals noted “[t]o obtain a voluntary intoxication instruction, a defendant ‘must produce substantial evidence which would support a conclusion by the judge that he was so intoxicated that he could not form’ the specific intent to commit the underlying offenses.” Slip Op. at 5, quoting State v. Mash, 323 N.C. 339, 346 (1988). However, the court pointed out that “mere intoxication” was not sufficient, and that evidence had to show the defendant had lost his ability to think and plan due to the overconsumption of intoxicants. Id. Here, although defendant testified to consuming a large amount of cocaine over several days, the court highlighted instances of defendant recalling the events of the pursuit and arrest, as well as his interview at the police station. The court concluded defendant failed to produce evidence sufficient to justify the voluntary intoxication instruction. 

Turning to (2), the court noted that plain error was the applicable standard as defendant did not object to the jury instruction on possession of a firearm at trial. While the trial court did not specify which firearm defendant possessed in the instruction, the series of events where defendant fled the pharmacy and dropped a gun in the parking lot allowed for only one specific gun to be relevant. The other two firearms found at the scene were inside the vehicle and could not have been possessed by defendant. As a result, defendant could not demonstrate plain error. 

Judge Murphy concurred in the result only as to (1), and concurred as to (2). 

In this Nash County case, defendant appealed his conviction for possession of a firearm by a felon, arguing insufficient evidence to establish his constructive possession of the firearm. The Court of Appeals agreed, reversing and remanding for resentencing. 

In May of 2020, a problem oriented policing team was attempting to prevent retaliatory shootings by locating individuals that may have been involved in the incidents, and defendant was identified as one person possibly involved. Officers located a vehicle with defendant inside and initiated a traffic stop; defendant was in the front passenger seat of the vehicle. After the stop, defendant exited the vehicle and went inside a gas station, where he resisted being frisked, leading to the officers tasing him and detaining him in the police car. Searching the vehicle, the officers found a rifle in the backseat and ammunition between the driver and passenger seats. No DNA or fingerprints were taken from the firearm. At trial, defendant testified that the vehicle was his mothers, and he was not allowed to drive it because he did not have a license. Defendant also called a witness who testified that he was another passenger in the vehicle and the firearm was his. Despite the testimony, defendant was convicted of resisting a public officer and possession of a firearm by a felon, and he appealed the firearm charge.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals first noted that to establish constructive possession, the prosecutor was required to prove that defendant had the “’power and intent to control’ the disposition or use of the firearm.” Slip Op. at 6, quoting State v. Taylor, 203 N.C. App. 448 (2010). Here, the state attempted to show this by first arguing that defendant was the custodian of the vehicle, pointing to State v. Mitchell, 224 N.C. App 171 (2012). The court did not agree with this analysis, examining the relevant caselaw and concluding that “under our existing case law, the driver was also a custodian of the vehicle.  As such, the evidence fails to show Defendant was in exclusive possession of the vehicle at the time the rifle was found.” Slip Op. at 9. The court looked for additional incriminating circumstances that could link defendant to constructive possession of the firearm, but found none, concluding “the evidence, without more, is not sufficient to support a finding Defendant, while seated in the front passenger seat and one of four occupants, was in constructive possession of a firearm found in the rear passenger compartment of a vehicle not owned or operated by Defendant.” Id. at 12.

The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the evidence was insufficient to support an instruction on actual possession of the firearm in question. Actual possession requires that a party have physical or personal custody of the item. The case arose out of a drug transaction between an undercover officer and the defendant and others in a vehicle at a prearranged transaction site. The undercover officer testified that the defendant was fidgeting, looking around, and acting nervous as if he was “the lookout.” Another officer involved in the arrest saw the defendant in the front passenger seat with his hands “low” and not visible. When the officer opened the front passenger door, he saw a weapon between the seat and the passenger side door, where the defendant’s right hand had been. A photograph confirmed the location of a weapon. Although the firearm was not found on the defendant, the evidence was sufficient to show that he had “personal custody” of it and this was sufficient to support an instruction on actual possession.

In this felon in possession case, there was insufficient evidence that the defendant possessed the rifle in question. While attempting to locate the defendant, deputies established a perimeter around a large section of woods and deployed a canine, Max, to track human sent in the area. Following a scent, Max brought the officers to a loaded assault rifle. While Max continued to track the scent, another man emerged from the woods. After losing the scent and taking a rest break outside of the woods, Max resumed tracking, picking up a scent, and leading the officers to the defendant, who was discovered lying on the ground. The distance between where the rifle was recovered and where the defendant was found was between 75 and 100 yards. No evidence was presented regarding ownership of the rifle. DNA swabs taken from the rifle and compared to the defendant’s DNA were inconclusive. No other evidence connected the defendant to the rifle. Notwithstanding the fact that Max was trained not to veer off of one human sent and on to another, the rifle was not found in the defendant’s physical possession or in the immediate area over which he had the ability to control. Additionally, another man was present in the woods. The court noted that it had upheld convictions where defendants were identified as the perpetrator by tracking canines but found those cases distinguishable. Here, testimony of the canine’s tracking behavior constituted the only evidence offered to establish constructive possession of the rifle. In one of those prior cases, hair and shoe print evidence also was presented to identify the defendant as the perpetrator. In the other, the canines were offered a scent source of the defendant and the codefendant and were tracking a known sent, as compared to the case at hand where Max was tracking an unknown scent. Also, in neither of the prior cases did the canine lose the track, take a break, and then resume. Additionally, here the defendant was not alone in the area and no other evidence linked him to the rifle or the site where it was recovered. The court concluded:

The officers’ testimony is insufficient to establish any link between Defendant and the firearm. The canine tracking evidence on an unknown scent fails to raise, as a matter of law, a reasonable inference of either actual or constructive possession of a firearm by Defendant as a convicted felon. Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence raises only a “suspicion [or] conjecture” that Defendant possessed the rifle. The trial court erred in denying Defendant’s motion to dismiss. 

In a possession of a firearm by a felon case, the State failed to produce sufficient evidence that the defendant had constructive possession of the rifle. The rifle, which was registered to the defendant’s girlfriend was found in a car registered to the defendant but driven by the girlfriend. The defendant was a passenger in the car at the time. The rifle was found in a place where both the girlfriend and the defendant had equal access. There was no physical evidence tying the defendant to the rifle; his fingerprints were not found on the rifle, the magazine, or the spent casing. Although the gun was warm and appeared to have been recently fired, there was no evidence that the defendant had discharged the rifle because the gunshot residue test was inconclusive. Although the defendant admitted to an officer that he knew that the rifle was in the car, awareness of the weapon is not enough to establish constructive possession. In sum, the court concluded, the only evidence linking the defendant to the rifle was his presence in the vehicle and his knowledge that the gun was in the backseat.

(1) In a felon in possession case, evidence that the defendant was “playing with” the guns in question “likely” constituted sufficient evidence to support an instruction on actual possession of the guns. (2) The trial court erred by instructing the jury on constructive possession of the guns. The defendant did not have exclusive control of the apartment where the guns were found (the apartment was not his and he was not staying there; numerous people were at the apartment when the gun was found but the defendant himself was not present at that time). Thus, the State was required to show evidence of “other incriminating circumstances” to establish constructive possession. The court rejected the State’s argument that the fact that the defendant said he had played with the gun and that his fingerprints were on it constituted other incriminating circumstances, reasoning that showed actual not constructive possession. The court also found evidence that the defendant saw the gun in the apartment when another person brought it there insufficient to establish constructive possession.

There was sufficient evidence that the defendant constructively possessed a gun found in a van to support charges of carrying a concealed weapon and possession of a firearm by a felon. The fact that the defendant was the driver of the van gave rise to an inference of possession. Additionally, other evidence showed possession: the firearm was found on the floor next to the driver’s seat, in close proximity to the defendant; the defendant admitted that he owned the gun; and this admission was corroborated by a passenger in the van who had seen the defendant in possession of the weapon that afternoon, and remembered that the defendant had been carrying the gun in his pants pocket and later placed it on the van floor.

There was sufficient evidence of constructive possession. When a probation officer went to the defendant’s cabin, the defendant ran away; a frisk of the defendant revealed spent .45 caliber shells that smelled like they had been recently fired; the defendant told the officer that he had been shooting and showed the officer boxes of ammunition close to the cabin, of the same type found during the frisk; a search revealed a .45 caliber handgun in the undergrowth close to the cabin, near where the defendant had run.