State v. Lee, 370 N.C. 671, 814 S.E.2d 81 (Apr. 6, 2018)

On discretionary review of a unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals, ___ N.C. App. ___, 789 S.E.2d 679 (2016), the court reversed because of errors in the jury instructions on self-defense. At trial, the parties agreed to the delivery of N.C.P.I.–Crim. 206.10, the pattern instruction on first-degree murder and self-defense. That instruction provides, in relevant part: “Furthermore, the defendant has no duty to retreat in a place where the defendant has a lawful right to be.” Additionally, N.C.P.I.–Crim. 308.10, which is incorporated by reference in footnote 7 of N.C.P.I.–Crim. 206.10 and entitled “Self-Defense, Retreat,” states that “[i]f the defendant was not the aggressor and the defendant was . . . [at a place the defendant had a lawful right to be], the defendant could stand the defendant’s ground and repel force with force.” Although the trial court agreed to instruct the jury on self-defense according to N.C.P.I.–Crim. 206.10, it ultimately omitted the “no duty to retreat” language of N.C.P.I.–Crim. 206.10 from its actual instructions without prior notice to the parties and did not give any part of the “stand-your-ground” instruction. Defense counsel did not object to the instruction as given. The jury convicted defendant of second-degree murder and the defendant appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, reasoning that the law limits a defendant’s right to stand his ground to any place he or she has the lawful right to be, which did not include the public street where the incident occurred. The Supreme Court allowed defendant’s petition for discretionary review and reversed.

(1) The court held that when a trial court agrees to give a requested pattern instruction, an erroneous deviation from that instruction is preserved for appellate review without further request or objection. Here, because the trial court agreed to instruct the jury in accordance with N.C.P.I.–Crim. 206.10, its omission of the required stand-your-ground provision substantively deviated from the agreed-upon pattern jury instruction, thus preserving this issue for appellate review.

(2) By omitting the relevant stand-your-ground provision, the trial court’s jury instructions were an inaccurate and misleading statement of the law. The court concluded, in part, that “[c]ontrary to the opinion below, the phrase “any place he or she has the lawful right to be” is not limited to one’s home, motor vehicle, or workplace, but includes any place the citizenry has a general right to be under the circumstances.” Here, the defendant offered ample evidence that he acted in self-defense while standing in a public street, where he had a right to be when he shot the victim. Because the defendant showed a reasonable possibility that, had the trial court given the required stand-your-ground instruction, a different result would have been reached at trial, the court reversed the Court of Appeals, finding that the defendant was entitled to a new trial.