State v. Teel, COA24-233, ___ N.C. App. ___ (Nov. 19, 2024)

In this Wake County case, defendant appealed his conviction for voluntary manslaughter, arguing (1) error or plain error in failing to provide a “not guilty” mandate for the voluntary manslaughter instruction, (2) error in ruling a hearsay statement was not an excited utterance and inadmissible, and (3) cumulative errors depriving him of a fair trial. The Court of Appeals found no prejudicial error.

In September of 2021, defendant and a group of friends traveled from Greenville to go out at a bar in Raleigh. At the end of the night, a fight began in the parking lot and the victim and one of defendant’s friends were on the ground hitting each other when a shot was fired. Defendant testified that he also fired a shot at the victim, but this was after the first shot was fired. During trial, defense counsel tried to introduce a statement from the friend involved in the fight that he had shot the victim, but the trial court excluded this statement as hearsay and found that it was not an excited utterance because some minutes had passed after the shooting. During the charge conference, the parties collaborated on the jury instructions, and defense counsel did not object to the instruction on voluntary manslaughter. The instruction as given to the jury did not include a “not guilty” mandate on voluntary manslaughter, but did include a mandate for first- and second-degree murder.

Taking up (1), the Court of Appeals first established that defendant’s participation in crafting the instruction did not represent invited error. Defendant argued that the issue was properly preserved for appellate review as the trial court deviated from a pattern instruction, but because “Defense counsel worked collaboratively with the State in crafting the voluntary manslaughter instruction . . . any deviation in the pattern instruction was one to which Defendant impliedly consented.” Slip Op. at 12. As a result, the court applied plain error review, and looked to State v. Gosnell,231 N.C. App. 106 (2013), for the applicable standard when a trial court omits the “not guilty” mandate from a jury instruction. Slip Op. at 13. The court noted that here, the court gave the proper “not guilty” instruction in other charges, and noted in the self-defense instruction that defendant would be not guilty of any murder or manslaughter, showing the trial court’s error “had no probable impact on the jury’s finding of guilt.” Id. at 14.

Moving to (2), the court explained that to qualify as an excited utterance, a statement must (i) “relate[] a sufficiently startling experience suspending reflective thought,” and (ii) “be a spontaneous reaction, not resulting from reflection or fabrication.” Id. at 17-18. The court found both of these requirements met in the current case, looking to State v. Allen, 162 N.C. App. 587 (2004), for an example of a statement given twenty minutes after a shooting as an excited utterance. However, the court found sufficient evidence in the record to support the jury’s conclusion of voluntary manslaughter, and explained defendant could not demonstrate prejudice as “there is not a reasonable probability that, but for the trial court’s exclusion of [the] hearsay statement, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different.” Id. at 19.

Finally, in (3), the court concluded after reviewing the record and “comparing the evidentiary error and alleged instructional error to the State’s evidence,” defendant could not show cumulative error. Id. at 20.