Case Summaries: N.C. Supreme Court (Nov. 4, 2022)

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the Supreme Court of North Carolina released on November 4, 2022. This summary will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present. Defendant preserved his challenge to trial court’s denial of requested jury instruction on self-defense even though defendant did not object during jury instruction conference. State v. Hooper, 2022-NCSC-114, ___ N.C. ___ (Nov. 4, 2022). In this Rockingham County case, the Supreme Court modified and affirmed the Court of Appeals decision that defendant had waived appellate review of the denial of his request for a self-defense instruction to the jury. In March of 2017, defendant and the mother of one of his sons had an altercation at a hotel in Reidsville. Defendant struck and choked the female victim; eventually the victim grabbed a pistol in the hotel room to defend herself. Testimony differed on whether the victim intentionally fired the pistol into the floor of the hotel or if it went off in a struggle, but defendant was struck in the calf by a bullet. After the altercation, the victim left the hotel room and filed a report with police. Defendant was indicted on several assault and firearm charges. At trial, defendant did not give notice that he planned to argue self-defense, and did not testify on his own behalf; during the jury instruction conference defendant’s counsel agreed with the proposed instructions, which did not include self-defense. However, on the [...]