State v. Stephens

• Decision Date: 31 December 2020
• Docket Number: No. COA19-425,COA19-425
• Citation: 853 S.E.2d 488
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Charles STEPHENS, Defendant.
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals

853 S.E.2d 488

STATE of North Carolina

v.Charles STEPHENS, Defendant.

No. COA19-425

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Filed: December 31, 2020

Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Assistant Attorney General Teresa M. Postell, for the State.

Goodman Carr, PLLC, by W. Rob Heroy, Charlotte, and Dan Roberts, for Defendant-Appellant.

McGEE, Chief Judge.

Charles Stephens ("Defendant") appeals from judgments entered 19 September 2018 finding him guilty of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and discharging a weapon into an occupied dwelling. Defendant contends the trial court erred by (1) denying his jury instruction on self-defense, (2) limiting his cross-examination about a witness's prior felony conviction, and (3) denying him the opportunity to present evidence about an after-the-fact encounter.

I. Factual and Procedural History

Joel Drye ("Mr. Drye") and Defendant lived in Albemarle, North Carolina, about a mile apart in an area locally known as Palestine in 2017. As Mr. Drye slept in his bedroom on the morning of 29 September 2017, Debra Drye ("Ms. Drye"), Mr. Drye's wife, allowed one of the family's dogs outside to relieve itself and started doing laundry. However, after Ms. Drye opened the door to allow the first dog to go out, the door did not close all the way. Before Ms. Drye realized the back door was not closed, the family's other dog escaped.

A little after 10:30 a.m., Defendant knocked on the Dryes’ back door. When Ms. Drye answered the door, Defendant, a man Ms. Drye had seen before but did not know, said "[y]our dogs killed my cat[,] [m]y wife called me and told me your dogs killed my cat." Ms. Drye attempted to apologize, but Defendant demanded to speak with Mr. Drye. Ms. Drye went to the bedroom and awakened Mr. Drye, telling him, "[t]he dogs got out this morning and there's a man out here and he said our dogs killed his cat."

Mr. Drye got out of bed and met Defendant at the back door to talk. Mr. Drye testified Defendant was standing "just beyond [his] back steps." Mr. Drye said he stepped down to the bottom step and Defendant said "your g..d... dogs killed my cat" and "[w]hy aren't you out getting your dogs. They've killed some more of my pets."

This was not the first time the Dryes’ dogs had gotten loose and killed a neighbor's pet. Mr. Drye, like Ms. Drye, acknowledged and apologized for Defendant's loss of his cat. Mr. Drye told Defendant, "I'm sorry. We will do what we need to do ... [about] the cat." Mr. Drye offered to "pay any damages," but that only made Defendant angrier. Defendant testified at trial that "we're just back and forth about the dogs, why aren't you getting them? That is my big thing. And, you know, people's children, there's people's children in the neighborhood."

In frustration, Defendant called Mr. Drye a "g..d... son of a b....." Mr. Drye told Defendant that he does not allow the use of vulgarities in his house and asked Defendant to stop "using God's name in vain." Defendant asked Mr. Drye, "[w]hat you going to do about it, you g..d... son b....."

As the argument escalated, Mr. Drye grabbed a piece of lumber, a photo of which was introduced into evidence, and which was described as a "2-inch by 2-inch stick." Defendant drew his 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol, for which he has a concealed-carry permit. At this point, Defendant's and Mr. Drye's stories diverge.

Defendant claims he drew his weapon after Mr. Drye beat him with the piece of lumber. Even then, Defendant claims he never aimed the weapon at Mr. Drye, but instead, laid the pistol across his stomach as a warning. Defendant testified as follows:

[Mr. Drye] hit me in the arm and across the shoulder with the stick, because when I was turning, he hit me on this side. And you can tell by the wound, it's a square object that hit me. And then the bruise on my shoulder. And that's when I pulled [the pistol] out and put it on my stomach because he had already -- I was walking away from him after our discussion was over, and that's when he throwed the stick down and run in the house. And his wife was right on his heels[.]

Defendant contends that Mr. Drye emerged from the house with a .45 caliber firearm and began shooting at him. Defendant testified that Mr. Drye "grazed me with a round[,]" and offered photographic evidence of his torn shirt and scratch on his side. Defendant testified that he returned fire, shooting Mr. Drye in self-defense.

The State contends Mr. Drye never raised the piece of lumber to beat Defendant. Instead, the State argued at trial that Defendant drew his weapon as soon as Mr. Drye grabbed the stick, pointed the gun in Mr. Drye's face, and threatened Defendant as "pick up that stick, I'll kill you g..d... a..." The State contends that only after Defendant's initial threat did Mr. Drye run into his house to grab his pistol and a magazine. Ms. Drye testified that she was "hollering" "[n]o, no, no, no, no, [Mr. Drye], no, no," "because [she] was hoping that [Mr. Drye] didn't come back out [of the house with his gun]," "because [she] wanted him to stay safe in the house."

Defendant allegedly waited in the driveway for Mr. Drye to return, while pointing his gun at the front and back door, "[m]oving the gun back and forth." The State concedes that Mr. Drye was the first to shoot when he returned from his house with a gun. Ms. Drye testified that Mr. Drye "fired up in the air and he said, ‘Go in the house, Debbie. Go call the law.’ " Ms. Drye went inside the house to call 911.

In total, Mr. Drye fired at least ten bullets at Defendant, and Defendant fired seven bullets at Mr. Drye, one of which struck Mr. Drye in the leg. Mr. Drye testified that he was shot from behind while fleeing. Ms. Drye called 911 a second time to report her husband's injury. Defendant got in his car and drove home where he, too, called 911.

The Stanly County Sheriff's Office responded to both 911 calls and issued a warrant for Defendant's arrest on 2 October 2017. Defendant was indicted on one count of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and discharging a weapon into an occupied dwelling on 13 November 2017. Almost a year later, a jury convicted Defendant of both offenses and the trial court sentenced Defendant to two presumptive consecutive sentences of 20 to 33 months on 19 September 2018. Defendant's sentences were suspended with supervised probation for 36 months and special conditions that Defendant serve 30 days in jail, have no contact with the Dryes, and pay restitution. Defendant appeals.

II. Analysis

Defendant raises three questions on appeal: (1) whether the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on self-defense based on an incorrect application of North Carolina law; (2) whether the trial court erred in prohibiting him from cross-examining Mr. Drye about his felonious possession of a firearm where it was relevant to Mr. Drye's incentive to cooperate with the State; and (3) whether the trial court erred in denying Defendant the opportunity to present evidence of an after-the-fact encounter between Defendant and Mr. Drye, in which Mr. Drye acknowledged blame for the encounter.

At trial, Defendant argued for a jury instruction on self-defense, but the trial court denied Defendant's requested instruction. Defendant argues the trial court erred in denying the jury instruction because a factual dispute existed of whether he was the aggressor. Alternatively, he argues he was entitled to a jury instruction on self-defense because a factual dispute existed of whether he withdrew and regained the right to self-defense under N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 14-51.4(a) and (b) (2019).

The trial court is required to instruct the jury on all substantial features of a case. State v. Cook , 254 N.C. App. 150, 152, 802 S.E.2d 575, 577 (2017), aff'd , 370 N.C. 506, 809 S.E.2d 566 (2018). "Any defense raised by the evidence is deemed a substantial feature of the case[.]" State v. Hudgins , 167 N.C. App. 705, 708, 606 S.E.2d 443, 446 (2005) (citation omitted). "For a particular defense to result in a required instruction, there must be substantial evidence of each element of the defense when viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the defendant." State v. Brown , 182 N.C. App. 115, 118, 646 S.E.2d 775, 777 (2007) (citation omitted). "Substantial evidence is ‘such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.’ " State v. Burrow , 248 N.C. App. 663, 666, 789 S.E.2d 923, 926 (2016) (quoting State v. Ferguson , 140 N.C. App. 699, 706, 538 S.E.2d 217, 222 (2000) ).

"When determining whether the evidence is sufficient to entitle a defendant to jury instructions on a defense or mitigating factor, courts must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to [the] defendant." State v. Mash , 323 N.C. 339, 348, 372 S.E.2d 532, 537 (1988) (citations omitted). " ‘Whether evidence is sufficient to warrant an instruction on self-defense is a question of law; therefore, the applicable standard of review is de novo. ’ " State v. Edwards , 239 N.C. App. 391, 393, 768 S.E.2d 619, 621 (2015) (citations omitted).

The law of self-defense is well-established in North Carolina:

The right to act in self-defense rests upon necessity, real or apparent, and a person may use such force as is necessary or apparently necessary to save himself from death or great bodily harm in the lawful exercise of his right of self-defense. A person may exercise such force if he believes it to be necessary and has reasonable grounds for such belief. The reasonableness of his belief is to be determined by the jury from the facts and circumstances as they appeared to the accused at the time.... However, the right of self-defense is only available to a person who is without fault, and if a person voluntarily, that is aggressively and willingly, enters into a fight, he cannot invoke the doctrine of self-defense unless he first abandons the fight, withdraws from it and gives notice to his adversary that he has done

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