State v. Bradford, ___ N.C. App. ___, 798 S.E.2d 546 (Mar. 21, 2017)

In this assault and discharging a firearm into occupied property case, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by providing a jury instruction on flight. The defendant fired his weapon at the victims as a vehicle carrying the defendant sped from a gas station. The court rejected the defendant’s argument because he was a passenger in the car—and not the driver—that there was no evidence supporting a flight instruction. The court noted that the bar for an instruction on flight “is low.” Here, the defendant fired his gun while the vehicle in which he was a passenger was speeding away from the gas station; the defendant later told the driver to stop at a specified location and then abandoned the vehicle and left the area on foot; and the defendant intentionally disposed of his weapon shortly thereafter. This evidence “plainly supports an instruction on flight in spite of the fact that Defendant was not actually driving the [vehicle] when it fled the … station.”