State v. Watlington, COA23-1106, ___ N.C. App. ___ (Mar. 5, 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.