State v. Kuhns, ___ N.C. App. ___, 817 S.E.2d 828 (Jul. 3, 2018)

In this voluntary manslaughter case, the trial court committed prejudicial error by denying the defendant’s request for a jury instruction on defense of habitation. The trial court denied the defendant’s requested instruction, finding no evidence that the victim was “trying to break in.” According to the trial court, the defendant’s evidence demonstrated that he was attempting to prevent injury to himself, not trying to prevent someone coming into his curtilage or home. The trial court’s ruling was erroneous. As explained in the “Note Well” in the jury instruction, the use of force is justified when the defendant is acting to prevent a forcible entry into the defendant’s home or to terminate an intruder’s unlawful entry into the home, a term that includes the curtilage. Here, the victim was standing within the curtilage of the defendant’s property when the defendant fired the fatal shot. The court rejected the State’s argument that the defendant was not entitled to the instruction because the victim never came onto the defendant’s porch and never tried to open the door to the defendant’s trailer, finding that it “defies the plain language of the statute.” Despite numerous requests to leave and multiple orders from law enforcement, the victim continued to return to the curtilage of the defendant’s property while repeatedly threatening bodily harm. Thus, the trial court erred by denying the defendant’s request for the jury instruction, and this error required reversal.