State v. Blue
| Decision Date | 28 June 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 304A01.,304A01. |
| Citation | 565 S.E.2d 133 |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Lee Isaac BLUE. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Roy Cooper, Attorney General, by James P. Longest, Jr., Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State.
Donald K. Tisdale, Sr., and Christopher R. Clifton, Winston-Salem, for defendant-appellant.
Defendant was charged with second-degree murder for the stabbing death of James Hilton on 10 July 1998. A jury found defendant guilty of voluntary manslaughter, and the trial court sentenced defendant to a term of 77 to 102 months' imprisonment. In a split decision, the Court of Appeals' majority found no error. Defendant appealed to this Court based on the dissenting opinion; and for the reasons stated herein, we reverse the Court of Appeals and remand for a new trial.
For ease of presentation we address defendant's evidence first. At trial defendant's evidence tended to show that on a previous occasion Hilton had gone to defendant's residence with another man named Nudie. When the men parked in front of defendant's residence, Hilton was observed with a sawed-off shotgun. Both men exited the vehicle, but only Nudie entered the house to talk to defendant. In that conversation Nudie indicated to defendant, "If you start anything, my man on the porch out here gonna blow your head off." Hilton stood on the porch and looked in the screen door at some point. Defendant told Nudie to leave and that defendant did not want any trouble. Nudie and Hilton left.
On 10 July 1998, Hilton went back to defendant's home looking for Deidre Shuler. After being told that Shuler lived next door, Hilton left to find Shuler. Defendant saw Shuler and told Hilton, "There she is." Hilton and Shuler met in the yard and spoke to each other, and then Hilton came back onto defendant's front porch. Hilton "looked like he was mad at the world." While this was taking place, defendant's housemate, Spencer Wilson, was standing on the front porch. Defendant and Wilson told Hilton not to walk across their freshly planted grass. When he came up onto the porch, Hilton asked defendant, Thereafter, defendant and Hilton struggled on the front porch, and at some point the two went head first over the bannister. During the struggle, Hilton was stabbed. Once they landed on the ground, the two got up. Defendant went back up the steps and into the house. Hilton followed defendant up the steps and collapsed onto a couch on the porch.
The State presented the testimony of Shuler, which tended to show that Shuler and defendant had been drinking at defendant's house; that Shuler had gone back into her house to take a nap; that Shuler heard defendant hollering her name; and that when she walked out onto her porch, defendant yelled, "There that bitch is right there." Hilton went up the steps at the end of defendant's porch, defendant hit him, and the deadly struggle ensued. Shuler's assessment of the fight was that Hilton was getting the best of defendant.
The State also presented the testimony of Darweshi Wilson, who lived across the street. According to Wilson, he went out onto his front porch to smoke a cigarette and observed defendant and Hilton arguing on defendant's front porch, though he could not hear their tone. Wilson saw defendant strike Hilton in the face and saw defendant make an uppercut motion with a knife. After the two went over the bannister, defendant made another striking motion with his fist. Wilson may have heard defendant tell Hilton to leave before defendant made the striking motion; Hilton did not do so.
The evidence is not in dispute that defendant and Hilton struggled on the front porch, that Hilton died of an uppercut stab wound, and that the knife belonged to defendant. The evidence is in dispute, however, as to which of the two combatants struck the first blow and where they were located when that blow was struck. According to defendant's testimony, he was just inside his screen door when Hilton pulled the door open and hit defendant in the face. Spencer Wilson testified that defendant was opening the screen door to go into the house when Hilton hit defendant from behind. State's witnesses Shuler and Darweshi Wilson both testified that defendant struck the first blow. Shuler testified that Hilton was going up the steps onto the porch when defendant struck him. Wilson testified that defendant and Hilton were arguing on the porch when defendant struck Hilton.
The evidence further showed that Hilton was thirty-four or thirty-five years old; that he was five feet, nine inches tall; and that he weighed 168 pounds. Hilton had a blood alcohol level of .12; and cocaine and cocaine metabolites were also present in his blood. According to the pathologist who performed the autopsy, the wound which caused the victim's death was unlikely to have been caused by a fall, but was consistent with an uppercut motion with a knife. Defendant was forty-six years old at the time of the incident, weighed 160 pounds, and was six feet tall.
At trial, the trial court instructed the jury on self-defense; second-degree murder; voluntary manslaughter; and, pursuant to N.C.G .S. § 14-51.1, defense of the home. In instructing on voluntary manslaughter, the trial court instructed as follows:
After giving the summary mandates on second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter, the trial court instructed on N.C.G.S. § 14-51.1 as follows:
Shortly after retiring to deliberate, the jury requested a copy of the jury instructions and the charts the prosecutor had used in closing argument. The trial court advised the jurors that the charts were not in evidence and could not be taken to the jury room but that it would provide the jurors with a copy of the instructions. That afternoon the jury deliberated approximately three and one half hours with the exception of a short break and a brief interruption for instructions on a question. The next morning after deliberating for approximately two hours, the jury sent two questions to the trial judge. The first question read, "Is the front porch considered to be a part of the home or inside of the home?" The second question read, "Is excessive force one person with a weapon and one does not?"
After considerable discussion with counsel during which the trial judge reread the statute and made a diligent effort to locate any authority interpreting N.C.G.S. § 14-51.1, the trial court answered the questions as follows:
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