Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
State v. Bass, 371 N.C. 535 (Oct. 26, 2018)
On appeal from a decision of a divided panel of the Court of Appeals, ___ N.C. App. ___, 802 S.E.2d 477 (2017), the court affirmed, holding that the trial court committed prejudicial error by omitting stand-your-ground language from the self-defense jury instructions. The incident in question occurred outside of the Bay Tree Apartments. The defendant gave notice of his intent to pursue self-defense and throughout the trial presented evidence tending to support this defense. At the charge conference, the defendant requested that the jury charge include language from Pattern Jury Instruction 308.45 providing, in relevant part, that the defendant has no duty to retreat in a place where the defendant has a lawful right to be and that the defendant would have a lawful right to be at his place of residence. Believing that the no duty to retreat provisions applies only to an individual located in his own home, workplace, or motor vehicle, the trial court declined to give the requested instruction. After deliberations began, the jury asked for clarification on duty to retreat. Outside the presence of the jury, the defendant again requested that the trial court deliver a no duty to retreat instruction, this time pointing to Pattern Jury Instruction 308.10, including its language that the defendant has no duty to retreat when at a place that the defendant has a lawful right to be. The trial court again concluded that because the defendant was not in his residence, workplace, or car, the no duty to retreat instruction did not apply. The Court of Appeals held that the trial court committed reversible error in omitting the no duty to retreat language from its instruction. Reviewing the relevant statutes, the Supreme Court affirmed this holding, concluding that “wherever an individual is lawfully located—whether it is his home, motor vehicle, workplace, or any other place where he has the lawful right to be—the individual may stand his ground and defend himself from attack when he reasonably believes such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or another.”