Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
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This compendium includes significant criminal cases by the U.S. Supreme Court & N.C. appellate courts, Nov. 2008 – Present. Selected 4th Circuit cases also are included.
Jessica Smith prepared case summaries Nov. 2008-June 4, 2019; later summaries are prepared by other School staff.
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For the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion below, the court reversed State v. Boyd, 222 N.C. App. 160 (Aug. 7, 2012), and held that no plain error occurred in a kidnapping case. In the decision below, the court of appeals held, over a dissent, that the trial court committed plain error by instructing the jury on a theory of second degree kidnapping (removal) that was not charged in the indictment or supported by evidence. The dissenting judge did not believe that the error constituted plain error.
In this Beaufort County case, defendant appealed his conviction for second-degree kidnapping, arguing plain error in the jury instructions for instructing the jury on a theory not alleged in the indictment. The Court of Appeals agreed, vacating and remanding for a new trial on the kidnapping charge.
In 2017, law enforcement began investigating allegations of sexual misconduct by defendant against his step-granddaughter when she was ten to fourteen years old. These allegations included incidents where defendant would block the door and force the victim to take pictures or allow him to take pictures of her body before she could leave. At trial, defendant was charged with first-degree kidnapping and several other charges related to indecent liberties with a child and sexual servitude. Relevant for the appeal, the trial court instructed the jury on the lesser-included offense of second-degree kidnapping “based on a theory of involuntary servitude, not sexual servitude as alleged in the indictment.” Slip Op. at 3. Defendant did not object to the instructions at trial.
The Court of Appeals noted that the State conceded the error that the jury instructions did not match the indictment, but argued that it did not rise to the level of plain error. Beginning its inquiry, the court first explained that while no specific pattern jury instruction covered second-degree kidnapping under the theory of sexual servitude, North Carolina Pattern Instruction 210.70 covers sexual servitude, and this instruction was given to the jury. The court noted “that the trial court instructed the jury as to sexual servitude and the jury found Defendant not guilty of all four charges tends to indicate that the jury considered the uncharged ‘involuntary servitude’ to be something different from ‘sexual servitude,’ contrary to the State’s argument on appeal.” Id. at 8. The court went on to explore the two different theories in the statutes, explaining that “[t]he kidnapping statute specifically refers to other statutes that define both ‘sexual servitude’ and ‘involuntary servitude.’” Id. at 11. Here, the trial court provided an instruction on a theory totally separate from what was included in the indictment. Because defendant was convicted on a theory not indicted, and he was acquitted of the charges related to sexual servitude, “the trial court erred in its jury instructions and that instructional error rises to the level of plain error requiring a new trial on the kidnapping charge.” Id. at 16.
In this kidnapping case, although the trial court erred by instructing the jury on theories that were not alleged in the indictment, no plain error occurred. After rejecting the State’s argument that the defendant was precluded from plain error review, the court noted that the instruction error pertained to the elements that elevate a kidnapping to first-degree: failure to release in a safe place; serious injury to the victim; or sexual assault of the victim. Here, although the indictment charged only the element of sexual assault, the trial court instructed the jury that it could find the defendant guilty based on failure to release in a safe place, sexual assault or serious injury to the victim. Thus, the jury was instructed on elements not charged in the indictment, and this was error. However, the jury was given a special verdict sheet that separately listed all of the elevating elements, and the jury found the defendant guilty based on each individual elevating element. Because the State presented compelling evidence to support the elevating element of failure to release in a safe place (among other things, the defendant left the victim alone at the bottom of a rocky creek embankment under a bridge near a deserted stretch of road) and because the jury separately found the defendant guilty of first-degree kidnapping based on all of the elevating elements, no plain error occurred.