Smith's Criminal Case Compendium

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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E.g., 04/06/2025
E.g., 04/06/2025

In this Guilford County case, two defendants, Watlington and Felton, both appealed from judgments entered after a trial where the defendants were tried jointly. Watlington was convicted of first-degree murder and additional felonies related to her attempts to run over multiple people at a gas station after a fight. Felton was convicted of eleven counts of accessory after the fact to Watlington’s convictions. The Court of Appeals arrested judgment on three of Watlington’s convictions for hit and run and three of Felton’s convictions for accessory after the fact to hit and run, but found no error with the other convictions, remanding for resentencing.

One early morning in October of 2019, Felton drove an SUV to a gas station in Greensboro, with Watlington as a passenger. After hitting a parked car, a confrontation ensued between Watlington, Felton, and the car's owner. The argument escalated into a brawl involving multiple people over the course of twenty-five minutes, and testimony showed Felton was the primary aggressor. Around thirty minutes after the confrontation began, Watlington got into the driver's seat of the SUV and backed over a group of people; it took her approximately ten seconds to completely run over the victims. After stopping completely clear of the victims, Watlington drove forward, running over the same group of people at full speed. Felton watched the entire incident without stopping Watlington, then stood over the victims yelling at them. One victim died at the scene, and several others sustained serious injuries. The two defendants drove away in the SUV but were apprehended nearby a short time later.

The Court of Appeals took up Watlington’s arguments on appeal first, beginning with her argument that it was error for assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury to be the predicate felony for her first-degree murder conviction. In State v. Jones, 353 N.C. 159 (1994), the Supreme Court held that “[f]or assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury to serve as the predicate felony for a felony murder conviction . . . the individual must have acted with a ‘level of intent greater than culpable negligence.’” Slip Op. at 11 (quoting Jones at 167). Here, Watlington argued that Jones represented a “bright-line rule” that assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury could never be a predicate felony, an argument the court rejected. Id. Instead, the court explained that “assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, as a matter of law, can serve as the predicate felony for a felony murder conviction when the defendant acts with the ‘actual intent to commit the act that forms the basis of [the] first-degree murder charge.’” Id. at 13 (quoting Jones at 166). The trial court properly instructed the jury in this case, and the court noted that sufficient evidence supported the conclusion that Watlington acted intentionally when driving over the victims with the SUV. The court also rejected Watlington’s challenge to the jury instruction for felony murder and the lack of an instruction on voluntary manslaughter, finding no errors in the instruction given and no evidence to support an additional voluntary manslaughter instruction.

The court next considered Watlington’s argument regarding her multiple hit and run counts, and agreed that the structure of the statute did not support all the convictions. G.S. 20-166 “does not clarify whether its unit of prosecution is the conduct of leaving the scene of a crash or the number of victims injured as a result of the crash,” resulting in an ambiguity for the court to resolve. Id. at 18. Here the court applied the rule of lenity, interpreting the ambiguity in Watlington’s favor. The court explained that there were five victims, but only two crashes, one when Watlington backed over the victims and the second when Watlington drove forward over the victims. As a result, Watlington could only be convicted twice, “one conviction for Watlington’s conduct of leaving the scene of each crash,” and the court arrested judgment on the other three hit and run convictions. Id. at 21.

Arriving at Felton’s arguments, the court first dispensed with her argument that there was insufficient evidence to support her convictions for accessory after the fact. Here, evidence showed that Felton watched Watlington hit the victims with the SUV, then left the scene with her and took the keys to the SUV, concealing the identity of Watlington as the driver. The court found this evidence sufficient to support Felton’s convictions. The court also rejected Felton’s challenge to the language of her indictments, finding no fatal variance from the evidence at trial.

Felton argued that she should not be subject to multiple convictions for accessory after the fact; the court rejected this, explaining “the context of [G.S.] 14-7 clearly indicates that the legislature intended the allowable unit of prosecution to be each felony for which the principal committed and the accessory assisted after the fact.” Id. at 27. The court then considered Felton’s argument that she was convicted as accessory after the fact to hit and run for merely leaving the scene. Rejecting this argument, the court pointed to the many other aspects of Felton’s culpability after the crashes, including taking the SUV’s keys and concealing Watlington’s identity as the driver. However, the court arrested judgment on three of Felton’s convictions, as it had done for Watlington’s hit and run convictions discussed above.

Felton then challenged the jury instructions, arguing they provided a theory of guilt not alleged in the indictments, specifically that she assisted Watlington in attempting to escape. The court noted the circumstantial evidence of Felton possessing the SUV keys and that this did not represent a stand-alone theory of guilt, rejecting Felton’s argument. Finally, the court rejected Felton’s challenge to the closing argument, noting that law enforcement body cam footage supported the inference that Felton and Watlington were together when apprehended.

In this New Hanover County case, defendant appealed his convictions for assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill inflicting serious injury (AWDWIKISI), felony hit-and-run with serious injury, and robbery with a dangerous weapon, making several arguments centered around the definition of “crash” under G.S. 20-166, the mutually exclusive nature of the AWDWIKISI and hit-and-run charges, and a clerical error in the judgment. The Court of Appeals found no merit with defendant’s arguments regarding his convictions, but did find that the trial court made a clerical error in the hit-and-run judgment and remanded for correction of that error. 

In January of 2021, defendant met the victim to sell him marijuana; instead of paying defendant for the marijuana, the victim grabbed the drugs and ran. Defendant hit the victim with his car, got out of the vehicle and went through the victim’s pockets, then drove away without calling for assistance. 

Defendant argued that “crash” as used in the section defining a hit-and-run (G.S. 20-166) could not refer to an intentional action because it was the same as an “accident.” To support this argument, defendant pointed to the definition section G.S. 20-4.01(4c), defining “crash” and including the following language: “[t]he terms collision, accident, and crash and their cognates are synonymous.” Rejecting defendant’s interpretation, the Court of Appeals explained “[t]he General Assembly chose not to discriminate between intended events and unintended events; therefore, so long as there is injury caused by a motor vehicle— intent is irrelevant.” Slip Op. at 6-7. After the court established that defendant could be charged with hit-and-run for an intentional action, it dispensed with defendant’s argument regarding his AWDWIKISI charge, explaining “[c]onvictions of AWDWIKISI and felony hit and run with serious injury are not mutually exclusive because assault is intentional, and a ‘crash’ can also be intentional.” Id. at 10. Based on this reasoning, the court rejected defendant’s various challenges to his convictions.  

Moving to the clerical error, the court acknowledged that the judgment finding defendant guilty of hit-and-run referenced G.S. 20-166 subsection “(E)” instead of the appropriate “(a)” for his conviction. The court remanded to allow correction of the clerical error. 

The State’s evidence tended to show that the defendant was driving a van with a trailer attached behind it when he cut off two motorcycles, made rude gestures, and caused one of the motorcycles to crash. The driver of the motorcycle sustained serious injuries and a passenger died as a result of the accident. The defendant slowed down briefly and then fled the scene. 

(1) The trial court did not err in denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss the charges of felony hit and run because there was sufficient evidence that the defendant knew or reasonably should have known, that the vehicle he was driving was involved in a crash and that someone was killed or seriously injured as a result. First, the defendant argued that there was insufficient evidence that he knew or reasonably should have known that the vehicle he was operating was involved in a crash or that the crash had resulted in serious bodily injury because the evidence could have shown that the defendant could not have seen behind his van and trailer or that there may not have been contact between the victim’s motorcycle and the defendant’s trailer. The Court of Appeals rejected this argument for multiple reasons, largely centering on evidence of the defendant’s awareness of the position of his vehicle relative to the motorcyclists and other traffic and evidence that the defendant slowed down immediately following the crash and then sped away at a high rate of speed.

(2) The defendant argued that the trial court erred in giving the jury an instruction on flight as evidence of the defendant’s consciousness of guilt because “leaving the scene of the offense, which could be considered flight under the challenged instruction, is an essential element of felony hit and run.” Slip op. at ¶ 37. The Court of Appeals disagreed with the defendant’s assertion that flight is an essential element of felony hit and run, explaining that flight requires some evidence of a defendant taking steps to avoid apprehension while a driver’s motive for leaving the scene of a crash for purposes of felony hit and run is immaterial. The court went on to find the instruction supported by evidence of the defendant speeding away, later lying about why his tire was blown out, and asking for directions to a destination that would allow him to arrive there without traveling on the interstate.

Hit and run resulting in injury is a lesser included offense of hit and run resulting in death. The defendant was indicted for a felonious hit and run resulting in death. At trial the State requested that the jury be instructed on the offense of felonious hit and run resulting in injury. Over the defendant’s objection, the trial court agreed to so instruct the jury. The jury found the defendant guilty of that offense. On appeal, the court held that because felonious hit and run resulting in injury is a lesser included offense of hit and run resulting in death no error occurred.

In a hit and run case involving failure to remain at the scene, the trial court committed plain error by failing to instruct the jury with respect to willfulness where the defendant’s sole defense was that his departure was authorized and required to get assistance for the victim. The court continued:

To prevent future confusion and danger, we also take this opportunity to address the State’s argument that N.C.G.S. § 20-166 prohibits a driver from leaving the scene of an accident to obtain medical care for himself or others and instead only authorizes a driver to temporarily leave to in order to call for help. While it is true that subsection (a) instructs that a driver may not leave the scene of an accident “for any purpose other than to call for a law enforcement officer, to call for medical assistance or medical treatment,” we do not read statutory subsections in isolation. Instead, statutes dealing with the same subject matter must be construed in pari materia and reconciled, if possible.

Applying that principle here leads us to conclude that, even though N.C.G.S. §20-166(a) instructs that drivers may only leave for the limited purpose of calling for aid, that authorization is expanded by N.C.G.S. § 20-166(b)’s requirement that drivers, among other things, “shall render to any person injured in such crash reasonable assistance, including the calling for medical assistance” permitted by subsection (a). (Emphasis added). The plain language of this provision indicates that a driver’s obligation to an injured person permits him to take action including but not limited to that which is authorized by subsection (a). Accordingly, it is clear that taking a seriously injured individual to the hospital to receive medical treatment is not prohibited by the statute in the event that such assistance is reasonable under the circumstances. In fact, the violation of that directive is itself a Class 1 misdemeanor.

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