State v. Harris, ___ N.C. App. ___, 800 S.E.2d 676 (May. 2, 2017)

No plain error occurred with respect to a supplemental jury instruction given by the trial court in response to the jury’s note that it was “stuck” during deliberations. The noted indicated that the jury was split 11 to 1. Neither party objected to the trial court’s suggestion to give the jury an instruction urging them to do what they could to arrive at a unanimous verdict. The defendant argued that the trial court’s instruction violated G.S. 15A-1235. Although the court found that the trial court’s failure to give the full instructions as directed by the statute did not rise to the level of plain error, it stated: “[W]e must clarify that at the time the instruction was given, the trial court should reasonably have believed that the jury was deadlocked. Because the trial court gave some of the instructions, but not all of them, it did commit error.”