This post summarizes published criminal law opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on April 1, 2026.
(1) Evidence was sufficient to support charges of attempted murder and discharging a firearm within an occupied enclosure with the intent to incite fear; (2) Trial court did not err by instructing jury on the felony disqualifier limiting a defendant’s right of self-defense; (3) Trial court did not err by declining to instruct the jury on the defense of accident where the evidence failed to support such an instruction.
State v. Cole, No. COA24-563 (N.C. App. April 1, 2026) (Mecklenburg County) (Zachary, J.). The defendant was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of discharging a firearm within an occupied enclosure with the intent to incite fear for shooting multiple people, and killing two of them, inside and outside of a Charlotte drug house.
The defendant took a friend to the drug house and had an altercation with the friend upon arriving that resulted in the friend hiding from him in the yard outside the house. After he was unable to find his friend in the yard, the defendant went inside the house. Some time later, other occupants of the house told the defendant he needed to leave and physically guided him out of the house. The defendant left in his car only to return twenty minutes later.
Upon seeing the defendant’s car parked back on the street in front of the house, Furahn Morrow and Doug Bolten went out into the yard to look for him. Morrow was armed. The two were standing near the back porch when Morrow pushed Bolten away and grabbed his gun. Before Morrow fully raised the gun, the defendant shot Morrow in the face, killing him. Bolten ran into a storage closet. The defendant found him, and Bolten, who was unarmed, held up his hands and pled for his life. The defendant shot Bolten and then walked into the house.
The defendant opened fire inside the house’s crowded kitchen, shooting Tilden Hoyle and shooting and killing Hoyle’s girlfriend, Janet Scronce. Two of the other occupants of the home wrestled the defendant for his gun, ultimately subduing him.
The defendant was prosecuted for two counts of first-degree murder for shooting and killing Morrow and Scronce and with two counts of attempted first-degree murder for shooting Bolten and Hoyle, who survived their injuries.
(1) The defendant argued on appeal that the trial court erred by denying his motion to dismiss the charge of attempted murder of Bolten as the evidence merely raised conjecture or suspicion that he had the requisite specific intent to kill. The court of appeals rejected that argument, finding that the circumstances surrounding Bolten’s shooting, including the fact that a cornered and unarmed Bolten pleaded for his life before the defendant shot him, provided substantial evidence of the defendant’s intent to kill.
The defendant also contended that the trial court erred by denying his motion to dismiss the charge of discharging a firearm within an occupied enclosure with the intent to incite fear. The court of appeals disagreed, finding substantial evidence that the defendant intended to incite fear. Here, the evidence showed that after shooting two people in the backyard, the defendant entered the kitchen with his gun and extra ammunition and resumed shooting. Chaos ensued as people scrambled to leave the kitchen and hid throughout the house. The court of appeals determined that the defendant had inspired fear — the foreseeable consequence of his deliberate action — and that he must be held to have intended that fear.
(2) While the trial court provided a self-defense instruction as to the shootings of Morrow and Bolton, the defendant argued that the trial court erred by also instructing the jury that the shootings would not be justified as self-defense if the defendant was attempting or committing a felony with a causal nexus to his use of defensive force. The defendant argued that this instruction improperly allowed the jury to consider allegedly felonious conduct that occurred after those shootings. The court of appeals disagreed. It rejected the notion that there is a specific temporal component to the felony disqualifier beyond the statutory requirement of an immediate causal nexus. Noting that it is ordinarily for the jury to determine whether a defendant was engaged in disqualifying conduct bearing an immediate causal nexus to the circumstances giving rise to the use of force, the appellate court held that the jury was given the opportunity to make that determination.
(3) The defendant argued on appeal that the trial court committed reversible error in denying his request for jury instructions on the defense of accident with respect to the shootings of Scronce and Hoyle and discharging a firearm within an occupied enclosure with the intent to incite fear. The defendant contended that his “‘version of events described a struggle over a gun,’ during which his weapon accidentally discharged, and Hoyle and Scronce were unintentionally shot.” (Slip op. at 25.) Thus, he argued that it was for the jury to decide whether he had the requisite criminal intent. The court of appeals concluded that the evidence taken in the light most favorable to the defendant did not support an instruction on the defense of accident. It agreed with the trial court’s determination that the evidence demonstrated that the defendant was engaged in unlawful conduct and acting with criminal intent. The appellate court stated that even in the light most favorable to the defendant, there is no reasonable explanation for the defendant’s decision to return to the house armed with a gun twenty minutes after multiple people told him he was no longer welcome there. Moreover, the court of appeals stated that the undisputed evidence of the struggle over the defendant’s gun did not give rise to the defense of accident as it occurred only after Sconce and Hoyle were shot. Finally, even assuming error, the appellate court concluded that the defendant could not demonstrate prejudice as the jury’s verdicts reflected its determination that the shootings were intentional.
The court of appeals declined to consider the defendant’s unpreserved argument that the trial court erred when it imposed judgment for discharging a firearm within an occupied enclosure with the intent to incite fear “when he ‘was also convicted of murder and attempted murder based on this same shooting, in violation of double jeopardy.’” (Slip op. at 31.) Finally, the court of appeals remanded the case for correction of a clerical error in the judgment that did not affect the sentence.
Trial court did not abuse its discretion in revoking defendant’s probation as sufficient evidence supported its finding that the defendant willfully absconded from supervision.
State v. Whitt, No. COA25-516 (N.C. App. April 1, 2026) (Surry County) (Zachary, J.).
The defendant was convicted of drug offenses in May 2024 and was placed on 24 months of supervised probation. As a condition of his probation, the trial court ordered the defendant to complete the residential treatment program for substance abuse at DART Cherry. Shortly after he was sentenced, electronic monitoring was added as a condition of the defendant’s probation.
Three violation reports were filed over the course of the defendant’s probation. The first, filed June 10, 2024, alleged that the defendant had absconded from supervision by leaving the DART Cherry program. The second, filed October 2, 2024, alleged the defendant violated three other conditions of probation. The third, filed October 21, 2024, again alleged that the defendant absconded. The defendant’s violation reports came on for hearing on December 17, 2024. The trial court found that the defendant had absconded from supervision, revoked his probation, and activated his suspended sentence. The defendant appealed, arguing that there was insufficient evidence that he willfully absconded since he also was subject to electronic monitoring. The defendant suggested that the probation officer, who made several unsuccessful attempts to contact the defendant at his residence, could have ascertained the defendant’s whereabouts through electronic monitoring data.
The court of appeals rejected the defendant’s argument, citing the lack of record evidence that the defendant had been fitted with an electronic monitoring device or that any such device was operational as well as the defendant’s testimony that he had been “‘on the road’” from June to August, that he did not have a residence after October 4, 2024, and that he did not keep his probation officer informed that he was “‘staying different places.’” (Slip op. at 6.)
Trial court did not err in denying defendant’s motion for mistrial arising from a law enforcement officer’s testimony referring to a photograph of the defendant as a mugshot and the State’s closing argument.
State v. Williams, No. COA25-766 (N.C. App. April 1, 2026) (Mecklenburg County) (Griffin, J.)
The defendant was charged with trafficking fentanyl based in part on evidence obtained during a search of his home. One of the officers who participated in that search testified at trial that he recognized the defendant in a photograph because of a “‘report, and the mugshot attached to the report.’” (Slip op. at 3.) The defendant objected, and the trial court sustained the objection. The defendant moved for a mistrial, which the trial court denied. The officer subsequently testified that the “mugshot” he was referring to was a picture of the defendant taken on the day of the search.
During closing argument, the prosecutor stated: “‘In my hand I’m holding CMPD 5, State’s 11, 65 grams. Half a milligram. One one-thousandth of a gram is the lethal dose, and I’m holding 65 grams in my hand. That is why this is serious. That is why you should take this seriously. This is the drug. This is the fentanyl that is in your community. It’s in your schools.’” (Slip op. at 4).
The defendant objected, and the trial court sustained the objection.
The prosecutor then stated: “‘This is why this is important. This is why your job as jurors is important. The State is now asking you to do your job, to hold [D]efendant accountable for the fentanyl that was inside of his pants, and inside of his man cave.’” (Slip op. at 4).
The defendant renewed his motion for mistrial, arguing that the prosecutor’s statements were inappropriate and prejudicial. The trial court denied the motion.
The defendant was convicted and he appealed, arguing that the denial of his motion for mistrial at both junctures was error. The court of appeals disagreed.
As to the mugshot testimony, the appellate court reasoned that the officer’s testimony following the defendant’s objection removed any significant risk of prejudice. That testimony made clear that the officer was not referring to prior bad acts by or criminal history of the defendant. Instead, the officer was referring to a photograph taken the day of the search in the instant case. The court of appeals explained that “[w]ith the jury properly apprised of the nature and time of the photograph,” the officer’s previous reference to the photograph as a “‘mugshot’” was not so serious that it substantially and irreparably prejudiced the defendant. (Slip op. at 12.) Thus, the court of appeals concluded that the trial court did not err in denying the defendant’s motion for mistrial on this basis.
As to the State’s closing argument, the court of appeals noted that the trial court sustained the defendant’s objection, an action that removed any prejudicial effect from the objected-to argument. Moreover, the appellate court concluded that the State’s closing argument did not substantially and irreparably prejudice the defendant because the evidence provided ample support for the jury’s verdict. Therefore, the court of appeals concluded that the trial court did not err in denying the defendant’s motion for mistrial regarding the State’s closing argument.