North Carolina Assault Deadly Weapon Bat Injury Serious Instruction Jury Lawyers Attorneys

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. SHANIKA ELONDA COMPTON

COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA

March 24, 2010, Heard in the Court of Appeals

September 7, 2010, Filed

Defendant struck Alexis Gaffney ("Gaffney") in her head with a bat causing Gaffney to suffer a broken nose and black eye. Defendant was indicted for assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury. Defendant pled not guilty and was tried before a jury.

Defendant was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury.

Issues:

Whether the trial court erred in instructing the jury that a bat is a deadly weapon per se where the weapon was not described by a witness and fatal injuries were not inflicted?

Whether the trial court committed plain error by failing to instruct the jury on the lessor included offenses -- simple assault and assault inflicting serious injury?

Observation and Holding:

With regard to defendant's assignment of error, our North Carolina Supreme Court has previously held that, [a] dangerous or deadly weapon "is generally defined as any article, instrument or substance which is likely to produce death or great bodily harm." Only "where the instrument, according to the manner of its use or the part of the body at which the blow is aimed, may or may not be likely to produce such results, its allegedly deadly character is one of fact to be determined by the jury." Here, the uncontroverted evidence showed that defendant struck Gaffney on the right side of her head with what was described by both State and defense witnesses as "a wooden bat." In fact, defendant testified that she "grabbed the bat out of [her] back door" and stated that she hit Gaffney as Gaffney was running toward her. Based on the aforementioned, we hold that the evidence amply supported the trial court's instruction that a "bat" is a dangerous and deadly weapon as a matter of law, because "n the circumstances of its use by defendant here, it was 'likely to produce death or great bodily harm.'"

The trial court is not required to submit the lesser included offense of simple assault or assault inflicting serious injury to the jury where the trial court has properly determined that the instrument used to commit the assault was a deadly weapon per se. Accordingly, we overrule defendant's assignment of error and hold that the trial court did not commit error, much less plain error.

Disclaimer:

These summaries are provided by the SRIS Law Group. They represent the firm's unofficial views of the Justices' opinions. The original opinions should be consulted for their authoritative content

North Carolina Assault Deadly Weapon Bat Injury Serious Instruction Jury Lawyers Attorneys

By: Atchuthan Sriskandarajah

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