State v. Hope

737 S.E.2d 108, 223 N.C. App. 468, 2012 WL 5846438, 2012 N.C. App. LEXIS 1306
CourtCourt of Appeals of North Carolina
DecidedNovember 20, 2012
DocketNo. COA12-659
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 737 S.E.2d 108 (State v. Hope) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Hope, 737 S.E.2d 108, 223 N.C. App. 468, 2012 WL 5846438, 2012 N.C. App. LEXIS 1306 (N.C. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

STROUD, Judge.

I. Factual Background

W.D. Hope (“defendant”) was indicted on 13 September 2010 for assaulting Mr. Thomas Goddard with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. Defendant pleaded not guilty and the case went to jury trial.

[470]*470The State’s evidence presented at trial tended to show the following: On 23 April 2010, defendant went to Mr. Goddard’s house. Defendant was angry with Mr. Goddard either because he believed that Mr. Goddard had made a move on his wife or because he believed that Mr. Goddard owed him money (the evidence was inconsistent on this point). When Mr. Goddard opened his front door, the defendant approached him, yelling, “Where’s your money, I’m gonna kill you.” Defendant then began beating him in the face and body with a metal pipe. After beating Mr. Goddard with the pipe, defendant left Mr. Goddard’s house and went to a neighbor’s house covered in blood, carrying a pipe which also had blood on it. When defendant entered the neighbor’s house he told the neighbors that “he had beat up and killed a man.”

Mr. Goddard suffered a severely broken jaw, several lost teeth, lacerations on his face, arms, and legs, as well as a substantial amount of blood loss. When the first responders arrived, Mr. Goddard was “covered in blood from head to toe.” He was airlifted to a trauma center, where the doctors stitched his lacerations, wired his jaw shut, and installed a metal plate in his jaw.

The only evidence presented in defendant’s case-in-chief was from defendant’s interactions with police. Defendant made the following statement to police:

I went to Mr. Goddard’s house on Glovinia Street to get 75 dollars he owed me for a table and TV. Also, he owed me for a hedge trimmer. When I got there, he said he didn’t have my money. I told him I needed my money. We — we both were drinking and words were exchanged. He hit me in the mouth with his fist while I was standing at the door. We started fighting and went into the living room. He pulled a pipe from under the sofa and hit me on the left lower leg.
We continued to fight over the pipe and I got control of the pipe. I picked him up and — to body slam him, and his heads (sic) — his head hit the bedroom doorframe. He got up and stumbled to the bed. I seen (sic) lots of blood coming from his head, so I left. I never hit him with the pipe or while he was in the bedroom.

Defendant also showed police what they described as “an old injury” on his leg, implying that it was from Mr. Goddard’s alleged assault on him.

[471]*471In the charge conference, the trial judge and the attorneys discussed which self-defense instruction to use. The judge proposed that he instruct the jury using North Carolina Pattern Jury Instructions Crim. 308.45. N.C.P.I. — Crim. 308.45. Defendant’s trial counsel objected and urged the judge to use N.C.P.I. — Crim. 308.40. The trial court noted that the instructions for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury cross-referenced 308.45, not 308.40. However, defendant’s trial counsel persisted and opted to have no self-defense instruction rather than 308.45. Further, defense counsel requested that the trial court instruct as to the lesser included offense of simple assault, which the court denied. In its instructions to the jury, the trial court did not include any self-defense instruction, but did include the lesser offenses of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and assault with a deadly weapon.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty as to the most serious charge. Defendant was then sentenced to 146 to 185 months imprisonment in the custody of the N.C. Department of Corrections. Defendant filed written notice of appeal on 11 October 2011.

II. Jurisdiction

“Without proper notice of appeal, this Court acquires no jurisdiction.” Brooks v. Gooden, 69 N.C. App. 701, 707, 318 S.E.2d 348, 352 (1984) (citations omitted). In order for this Court to have jurisdiction to consider an appeal from a judgment or order entered in a criminal case, the appellant must give oral notice of appeal at trial or file written notice of appeal. N.C.R. App. P. 4. Defendant admits that his notice of appeal is flawed in that it does not indicate to which court the appeal is taken, in violation of Rule 4(b). Therefore, we would normally be without jurisdiction to hear defendant’s appeal. See Brooks, 69 N.C. App. at 707, 318 S.E.2d at 352.

Defendant filed a petition for writ of certiorari on 28 September 2012. The State filed no response to defendant’s petition. In its discretion, the Court grants defendant’s petition. Therefore, we will consider defendant’s substantive arguments.

III. Jury Instructions

A. Standard of Review

Where the defendant preserves his challenge to jury instructions by objecting at trial, we review “the trial court’s decisions regarding jury instructions . . . de novo[.]” State v. Osorio, 196 N.C. App. 458, [472]*472466, 675 S.E.2d 144, 149 (2009) (citation omitted). However, “[a] defendant is not prejudiced by the granting of relief which he has sought or by error resulting from his own conduct. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1443(3)(2005). Thus, a defendant who invites error has waived his right to all appellate review concerning the invited error, including plain error review.” State v. Goodwin, 190 N.C. App. 570, 574, 661 S.E.2d 46, 49 (2008) (citation and quotation marks omitted), disc. rev. denied, 363 N.C. 133, 675 S.E.2d 664 (2009).

B. Analysis

Defendant argues that the trial court erred in not giving a self-defense instruction and in failing to give a simple assault instruction. Defendant contends that either the trial court should have given the requested 308.40 self-defense instruction or given the 308.45 self-defense instruction over the defendant’s objection, rather than giving him the option of a 308.45 instruction or none. Defendant further contends that the trial court erred in denying his request for an instruction on the lesser included offense of simple assault because there was sufficient evidence to give the jury that option.

1. Failure to Give N.C.P.I. — Crim. 308.40 or N.C.P.I. — Crim. 308.45 Self-Defense Instruction

Defendant first argues that the trial judge erred in not giving the requested 308.40 pattern self-defense instruction, or, in the alternative, not giving the 308.45 pattern self-defense instruction over the defendant’s objection. Defendant properly preserved this issue for our review by objecting in the instruction conference and again at trial, when the trial judge gave the parties an opportunity to. object to the instructions.

“The trial court must give a requested instruction when supported by the evidence in the case.” State v. Soles, 119 N.C. App. 375, 382, 459 S.E.2d 4, 9 (1995) (citation omitted), disc. rev. denied, 341 N.C. 655, 462 S.E.2d 523.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
737 S.E.2d 108, 223 N.C. App. 468, 2012 WL 5846438, 2012 N.C. App. LEXIS 1306, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-hope-ncctapp-2012.