State v. Yarborough, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (Apr. 21, 2020)

The defendant was convicted after a jury trial of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and other serious felony charges after he shot and killed his former girlfriend and then pistol-whipped and fired a gun at another woman, a registered nurse. In light of the facts of the case, the Court of Appeals rejected the defendant’s argument that the trial court erred by denying his motion to dismiss the attempted first-degree murder charge for insufficiency of the evidence that he acted with premeditation and deliberation. The State proved, among other things, that the defendant said he would kill her and that he shot the door near the doorknob four to six times before kicking the door and yelling, which the court deemed sufficient evidence for the jury to reasonably conclude that the defendant attempted to kill the victim with premeditation and deliberation.

The appellate court also concluded that the defendant could not demonstrate prejudicial error resulting from the trial court’s deadly weapon malice instruction. The defendant argued that the instruction could have been misleading to the extent that it allowed an inference of malice on the attempted murder charge for shooting at the victim based on the injury resulting from a different crime, the pistol-whipping. Based on the defendant’s use of a weapon and the related circumstances, the court was unpersuaded that the jury would have reached a different result without the instruction.