In this Wake County case, defendant appealed his convictions for first-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a felon, arguing (1) G.S. 14-415.1, the statute making possession of a firearm by a felon an offense, was unconstitutional, and (2) error in admitting defendant’s own statements. The Court of Appeals held G.S. 14-415.1 was constitutional and found no error.  

During August of 2020, defendant shot and killed two victims he had never met, one in Raleigh and another in Cary. Defendant’s probation officer recognized a BOLO put out by police, and reported him, leading to his arrest. Defendant had previously been convicted of felony animal cruelty for stealing his parent’s dog and decapitating it with a knife. At trial, the State offered statements from defendant made during a phone call with his mother, where she questioned why he posted a picture of a firearm on social media despite being convicted of a felony. Defendant responded “[t]his is a hard time for our country, and you’ve got racist black people out here.” Slip Op. at 18.

In (1), defendant argued that G.S. 14-415.1 was unconstitutional both facially and as-applied to his situation, pointing to N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), and United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), to support his arguments. The Court of Appeals began with the facial challenge, noting “the State must only show that section 14-415.1 ‘is constitutional in some of its applications.’” Slip Op. at 6 (quoting Rahimi at 693). The court acknowledged that G.S. 14-415.1 regulated some conduct covered by the Second Amendment, but concluded the section was “sufficiently analogous to historical laws to show that prohibiting convicted felons from possessing firearms is within the nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation.” Id. at 6-7. Because G.S. 14-415.1 could be “applied constitutionally to numerous circumstances” the court found no merit in defendant’s facial challenge. Id. at 10.

Moving to the as-applied constitutional challenge, defendant argued his felony did not represent violent crime against a person, and therefore shouldn’t justify disarming him. The court again disagreed, noting that beheading the dog was a violent crime, and “the record reflects Defendant has a history of victimizing others resulting in convictions for: assault on a government official or employee, simple assault, simple assault again, assault inflicting serious injury, assault on a handicapped person, and assault and battery.” Id. at 11. This led the court to conclude defendant had a history of violence towards others, and removing his right to possess a firearm was well within historical tradition. The court also considered defendant’s arguments under Section 30 of the North Carolina Constitution, applying the five-factor framework from Britt v. State, 363 N.C. 546, (2009). After performing the analysis the court concluded “the Britt factors undoubtedly weigh in favor of upholding the application of section 14-415.1 against Defendant as he has a demonstrated history of violence, victimizing others, and disregarding the law.” Slip Op. at 16.

Arriving at (2), the court explained “[t]he State’s theory of the case was that, because both victims were peaceful individuals whom Defendant had never met that happened to be people of color, the murders were committed out of racial animus on Defendant’s part.” Id. at 18. This made defendant’s comments relevant and probative of his motive for the murders under Rule of Evidence 401. The court then looked to the Rule of Evidence 403 balancing test, concluding the trial court adequately balanced the prejudicial effect with the probative value. The court noted that several of defendant’s statements that were more inflammatory were excluded, and even if it were error to admit the statements, overwhelming evidence supported defendant’s guilt in the matter, meaning he could not demonstrate the jury would have reached a different result without the statement in evidence.

In this Randolph County case, defendant appealed her conviction for second-degree murder, arguing plain error in admitting two exhibits of defendant’s text message conversations. The Court of Appeals majority agreed, vacating the conviction and granting defendant a new trial.

In June of 2017, Defendant shot a man she had a sexual relationship with in the back inside her home. The relationship between defendant and the victim was rocky and involved the use of methamphetamine; both parties were also involved in sexual relationships with others. In 2019, defendant was convicted of second-degree murder, and appealed, arguing error in instructing the jury on the aggressor doctrine among other issues. The Court of Appeals agreed with the aggressor doctrine argument, granting a new trial in State v. Hicks, 283 N.C. App. 74 (2022). However, the Supreme Court reversed that holding in State v. Hicks, 385 N.C. 52 (2023), remanding to the Court of Appeals for consideration of defendant’s arguments regarding the text messages admitted as Exhibits 174 and 175 and leading to the current opinion.

Taking up the exhibits in question, the Court of Appeals first established there was no invited error. After the prosecutor explained to the trial court their intention to provide printed out copies of the text messages to the jury to read along during the testimony, defense counsel said, “I think that’s probably a pretty good idea” and indicated the defense might use the same method with their expert. Slip Op. at 12. The court explained that “[t]his conversation does not indicate that defense counsel affirmatively requested that the jurors hold copies of State’s Exhibits 174 and 175, that the entirety of Defendant’s texts be submitted to the jury unredacted, nor that certain graphic images be enlarged.” Id. at 12-13. The court also highlighted that defense counsel did not stipulate to admitting the two exhibits, meaning this exchange did not represent invited error. Next the court considered several examples of cross-examination by defense counsel, concluding “[d]efense counsel did not address the numerous irrelevant and prejudicial texts nor the enlarged graphic images that Defendant now challenges on appeal.” Id. at 18. Finally, the court concluded that defense counsel’s request for an additional extraction from defendant’s phone was not invited error, as defense counsel was not trying to introduce all of the contents of defendant’s phone, but instead was “seeking to uncover potentially exculpatory evidence.” Id. at 20.

Having concluded that invited error did not apply, the court turned to plain error in admitting the exhibits, noting that “the analysis is whether, without that evidence, the jury probably would have reached a different result.” Id. at 21 (quoting State v. Reber, 386 N.C. 153 (2024)). Exhibit 174 consisted of text messages from defendant’s phone in 2017 and Exhibit 175 was several blown-up photographs of sex acts taken from these text messages. The jury was given printed copies of both exhibits to review during the testimony of a detective, who read portions of the text messages aloud and described some of the photographs. The court noted that many of the text messages in Exhibit 174 were irrelevant and prejudicial, and “the State published text message exchanges to the jury that were grossly prejudicial and carried a high propensity to inflame the emotional reaction of the jurors.” Id. at 27. The court reached a similar conclusion with the images in Exhibit 175, explaining “[u]nless the jurors were accustomed to looking at pornography, the close-up images of Defendant engaging in sexual activity with a married man only served the purpose of shocking and disgusting the jury.” Id. at 34.

After determining the prejudicial and irrelevant nature of the text messages and images, and the prejudicial nature of allowing the jury to hold the printed exhibits without any limiting instruction, the court performed the Reber analysis by examining the state of the evidence absent the two exhibits. The court concluded “[t]he jurors probably would have acquitted Defendant if the exhibits did not cause them to reach their decision based on passion, namely, a personal revulsion toward Defendant.” Id. at 43. As a result, the court vacated the conviction and remanded for a new trial.

Judge Murphy dissented and would have held the conflicting evidence would make this a “close case” for the jury, meaning it did not qualify as plain error under Reber. 

In this Rockingham County case, defendant appealed his convictions for statutory rape, indecent liberties with a child, and sex act by a substitute parent or guardian, arguing error in admitting expert testimony that the victim’s testimony was not coached, in granting a motion in limine preventing defendant from cross-examining the victim about her elementary school records, and in admitting a video of defendant’s interrogation showing equipment related to a polygraph examination. The Court of Appeals found no error. 

In 2021, defendant was brought to trial for the statutory rape of his granddaughter in 2017, when she was 11 years old. At trial, a forensic interviewer testified, over defendant’s objection, that he saw no indication that the victim was coached. The trial court also granted a motion in limine to prevent defendant from cross-examining the victim regarding school records from when she was in kindergarten through second grade showing conduct allegedly reflecting her propensity for untruthfulness. The conduct was behavior such as cheating on a test and stealing a pen.  

The Court of Appeals noted “[o]ur Supreme Court has held that ‘an expert may not testify that a prosecuting child-witness in a sexual abuse trial is believable [or] is not lying about the alleged sexual assault.’” Slip Op. at 2, quoting State v. Baymon, 336 N.C. 748, 754 (1994). However, the court could not point to a published case regarding a statement about coaching like the one in question here. Because there was no controlling opinion on the matter, the court engaged in a predictive exercise and held, “[b]ased upon our Supreme Court’s statement in Baymon, we conclude that it was not error for the trial court to allow expert testimony that [the victim] was not coached.” Id. at 3.

The court also found no error with the trial court’s conclusions regarding the admissibility of the victim’s childhood records under Rule of Evidence 403. The court explained that the evidence showed behavior that was too remote in time and only marginally probative regarding truthfulness. Finally, the court found no error with the interrogation video, explaining that while it is well established that polygraph evidence is not admissible, the video in question did not show a polygraph examination. Instead, the video merely showed “miscellaneous items on the table and not the actual polygraph evidence,” and all references to a polygraph examination were redacted before being shown to the jury. Id. at 5-6. 

In this child sexual assault case, the trial court did not err by finding that the defendant’s proffered testimony was not relevant. The defendant was charged with committing sexual acts on his daughter Sandy while home from the military on compassionate leave. At trial, the defendant attempted to testify that the reason for his compassionate leave was the rape of his other daughter by a neighbor. The defendant argued that his testimony constituted substantive evidence showing that he did not sexually assault the victim during his compassionate leave and would have allowed him to impeach his ex-wife, Ms. Alonzo, who testified that she witnessed the abuse. Specifically, he asserted that his testimony informing the jury of the sexual assault of his other daughter proves that he “would have been sufficiently deterred” from molesting Sandy during that same time period as “Ms. Alonzo [was] watching him like a hawk.” He further asserted that the testimony would “discredit[] Ms. Alonzo’s testimony” that she saw him sexually assault Sandy, making her explanation for not contacting the police after witnessing his acts “less convincing.” The trial court excluded the testimony under Rules 401 and 403.

     The court made swift work of the defendant’s Rule 401 argument, concluding that his proposed testimony does not have a logical tendency to prove that Defendant would not have sexually molested Sandy. The court went on to conclude that even if the testimony was relevant, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding it under Rule 403. The court explained: “The testimony concerning the sexual assault of another child by an unrelated, third-party had the potential to confuse the jury, outweighing any probative value.”

     The court also rejected the defendant’s argument that his testimony could have been used to impeach Ms. Alonzo. Specifically, he argued that because Ms. Alonzo reported the sexual assault of their other daughter by a neighbor, she therefore would have reported any assault she witnessed him commit. Defendant further alleged that because Ms. Alonzo did not file any reports, the jury could have therefore determined there was no sexual assault. The court rejected this argument, concluding: “Ms. Alonzo turning in a neighbor for sexual assault is entirely different, psychologically and emotionally, than turning in her husband. Without an established correlation between turning in neighbors and husbands for sexual assault, Defendant’s proposed testimony does not ‘have a logical tendency to prove’ that Ms. Alonzo was incorrect or untruthful in her testimony.” Moreover, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding this testimony under Rule 403. The court explained: “As previously stated, testimony concerning the sexual assault of another child by an unrelated, third-party had the potential to confuse the jury, outweighing any probative value.”

In this cyberbullying case based on electronic messages, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that the trial court erred by admitting into evidence the defendant’s Facebook posts that, among other things, stated that “there’s no empirical evidence that your Jesus ever existed.” The comments were relevant to show the defendant’s intent to intimidate or torment the victim, as well as the chain of events causing the victim’s mother to contact the police. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the posts were overly inflammatory.

In this murder case, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that the probative value of a recorded telephone call made by the defendant to his father was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. During the call, the defendant’s father asked: “Now who you done shot now?” and “That same gun, right?”

In an identity theft case where the defendant was alleged to have used credit card numbers belonging to several victims, the trial court did not abuse its discretion under Rule 403 by admitting evidence that the defendant also was in possession of debit and EBT cards belonging other persons to show intent.

The trial court did not abuse its discretion under Rule 403 by admitting, for purposes of corroboration, a testifying witness’s prior consistent statement. The court noted that although the statement was prejudicial to the defendant’s case, mere prejudice is not the determining factor under Rule 403; rather, the issue is whether unfair prejudice substantially outweighs the probative value. 

In a murder case involving a shooting, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing a detective to give lay opinion testimony concerning the calibers of bullets recovered at the crime scene. Although the testimony was prejudicial, the trial judge correctly ruled that its probative value (helping the jury understand the physical evidence) was not substantially outweighed by the degree of prejudice.