An unpublished opinion of the North Carolina Court of Appeals does not constitute 

controlling legal authority. Citation is disfavored, but may be permitted in accordance 

with the provisions of Rule 30(e)(3) of the North Carolina Rules of Appellate Procedure.

NO. COA14-754

NORTH CAROLINA COURT OF APPEALS

Filed: 31 December 2014

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

v. Wake County

No. 09 CRS 025171

DAVID LARRY WILLIAMS

Appeal by defendant from judgment entered 19 July 2013 by 

Judge R. Allen Baddour in Wake County Superior Court. Heard in 

the Court of Appeals 3 December 2014.

Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General 

Linda Kimbell, for the State.

Leslie C. Rawls, for defendant.

ELMORE, Judge.

On 19 July 2013, a jury found defendant guilty of felony 

stalking. The trial court sentenced defendant to 34-41 months 

of active imprisonment. After careful consideration, we find no 

prejudicial error. 

I. Facts
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On 6 May 2013, a grand jury indicted defendant on two 

counts of felony stalking. The date of offense listed on the 

indictment for the first charge was between 1 December 2008 and 

9 February 2009, and the date of offense for the second charge 

was between 24 September 2008 and 30 November 2008.

At trial, the trial court dismissed the first charge for 

insufficient evidence. The trial court did not subsequently 

instruct the jurors that they could not consider the events 

between 1 December 2008 and 9 February 2009 (the post-December 

evidence) as substantive evidence of the remaining charge. 

During closing arguments, both the State and defendant referred 

to the post-December evidence in support of their legal 

theories.

Following closing arguments, the trial court gave jury 

instructions but did not explicitly specify the time period 

between 24 September 2008 and 30 November 2008 as the relevant 

dates for the jury’s consideration of guilt on the remaining 

charge: “If you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt 

that on or about the alleged dates the defendant [committed the 

crime of felony stalking]. . . it would be your duty to return a 

verdict of guilty.” (emphasis added). The jury returned with a 
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unanimous guilty verdict on the remaining charge, and defendant 

appealed the trial court’s judgment in open court.

II. Analysis

a.) Closing arguments

Defendant contends the trial court erred by allowing the 

State, without limitation, to refer to post-December evidence 

during closing arguments. We disagree.

Pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1443(c) (2013), “[a] 

defendant is not prejudiced by the granting of relief which he 

has sought or by error resulting from his own conduct.” 

Accordingly, “a defendant who invites error has waived his right 

to all appellate review concerning the invited error, including 

plain error review.” State v. Hope, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___, 737 

S.E.2d 108, 111 (2012), review denied, 366 N.C. 438, 736 S.E.2d 

493 (2013) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

Even if the trial court erred by allowing the State, 

without limitation, to argue post-December evidence during 

closing arguments, defendant invited such error. After 

defendant’s motion to dismiss the first charge was granted, the 

following colloquy occurred:

PROSECUTOR: If I may just inquire to the 

facts 

past December 1st, while you’ve dismissed 

[the first charge], is the State still able 

to argue those acts to the relevance of --
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THE COURT: Sure.

PROSECUTOR: Okay.

DEFENDANT’S ATTORNEY: Yeah.

PROSECUTOR: I just did not want to --

THE COURT: Sure. That’s fine.

PROSECUTOR: -- did not want to overstep any 

boundaries in closing arguments.

The trial court clarified that the prosecutor would be 

permitted to argue post-December evidence during closing 

arguments and defendant’s attorney openly acquiesced to the 

trial court’s ruling.

During the charge conference (before closing arguments) the 

trial court, without any objection, or request for clarification 

from either party, stated:

THE COURT: Okay. Then let me also tell you 

all that what I would do after I’ve removed 

[the dismissed charge] is probably at the 

very beginning of page 3 . . . it said the 

defendant has been charged with two counts 

of stalking. It would say charged with 

stalking, and I would remove the [dismissed 

charge] and the dates. You all can argue --

the dates aren’t ordinarily in an 

instruction. It was just to give them 

bookends. But you’re certainly welcome to 

mention and argue the dates that, you know, 

things had happened or didn’t happen between 

those relevant dates, but I don’t think 

they’re necessary for the instruction. So I 

just want to make sure you all knew that.
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Moreover, defendant’s attorney argued post-December 

evidence in the first portion of his closing argument (before

the prosecutor gave his closing argument) and in the second 

portion of his closing argument (after the prosecutor gave his 

closing argument):

Now, the next time [the victim] called the 

detective was December 15, 2008. This was 

two days after the second car scratching. 

And when she talked to the detective on 

December 15, she told -- you know, that’s 

six weeks’ gap between the last conversation 

she had. And she told the detective that on 

moving day that she thought [defendant] was 

following her, she turned the car around and 

followed him. That’s what she told him. But 

she left out that terrifying event that she 

described it [sic] when [defendant] was 

supposed to come out to her new apartment at 

10:45 or 11:00 in the evening[.] . . . She 

didn’t tell him about that. She told him 

about [defendant] following her the day 

before. And she left off the North Hills 

scratching, the car scratching incident 

where North Hills was supposed to have been 

scratched in the side of the car. It 

happened two days before that, if 

it happened. 

. . . 

The latest stretch that you all heard was 

the North Hills scratching on the car, 

scratching the words “North Hills” into her 

car door. That happened here in court, and 

it is a big detail. Now, that would have 

been significant, scratching the word “North 

Hills” into the car. That was not said to 

the officer to whom she reported the 
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scratching. The car vandalism on December 

13, 2008, not reported. Didn’t say a word 

about it in the report. She 

talked to the detective two days later, 

December 15, ’08. Not a word about that 

scratching North Hills into the car. 

Nothing. She testified -- she and her father 

both testified in April 2011. Neither one of 

them mentioned North Hills being scratched 

into the car.

Defendant’s attorney also told the jury that although a GPS 

tracking device may have been found on the victim’s car on 25 

January 2009, “[there] [was] no evidence that [the] GPS was ever 

working [or] was ever activated.”

Defendant cannot now contend on appeal that the trial court 

committed reversible error by allowing the State to argue about 

post-December evidence, when his trial attorney agreed that the 

prosecutor should be allowed to discuss post-December evidence 

during closing arguments and the attorney referred to such

evidence during defendant’s own closing argument. Accordingly, 

we dismiss this issue on appeal. 

b.) Jury Instructions

Defendant’s remaining arguments all relate to the trial 

court’s jury instructions. He argues that the trial court erred 

by failing to provide limiting instructions regarding postDecember evidence, giving the jury overbroad instructions that 

encompassed the dates and evidence of the dismissed charge, 
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failing to instruct the jury on the dates to consider in its 

deliberations, and failing to instruct the jury that postDecember evidence could not be considered substantive evidence 

in reaching its verdict. We disagree. 

“In criminal cases, an issue that was not preserved by 

objection noted at trial and that is not deemed preserved by 

rule or law without any such action nevertheless may be made the 

basis of an issue presented on appeal when the judicial action 

questioned is specifically and distinctly contended to amount to 

plain error.” N.C. R. App. P. 10(a)(4); see State v. Gregory, 

342 N.C. 580, 584, 467 S.E.2d 28, 31 (1996) (“This Court has 

elected to review unpreserved issues for plain error when they 

involve either (1) errors in the judge’s instructions to the 

jury, or (2) rulings on the admissibility of evidence.”).

Plain error is an error “so basic, so prejudicial, so 

lacking in its elements that justice cannot have been done[.]” 

State v. Odom, 307 N.C. 655, 660, 300 S.E.2d 375, 378 (1983) 

(citations and quotation marks omitted). “Under the plain error 

rule, defendant must convince this Court not only that there was 

error, but that absent the error, the jury probably would have 

reached a different result.” State v. Jordan, 333 N.C. 431, 

440, 426 S.E.2d 692, 697 (1993).
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At trial, defendant’s attorney did not ask for a limiting 

instruction regarding the jury’s consideration of post-December 

evidence nor did he object to any of the other jury 

instructions. Thus, we review such unpreserved issues for plain 

error.

The offense date for the remaining charge was between 24 

September 2008 and 30 November 2008. During this time period, 

the controlling statute was N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-277.3 (2007), 

which has been subsequently repealed by N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-

277.3A (2009). The trial court correctly tracked the language 

of the former statute in its jury instructions, and instructed 

the jury that the State must prove:

First, that the defendant willfully on more 

than one occasion followed, was in the 

presence of, or otherwise harassed the 

victim without legal purpose. Second, that 

the defendant at that time had the intent to 

place the victim in reasonable fear for the 

victim’s 

safety or the safety of the person’s 

immediate family or close personal 

associates. One is placed in reasonable fear 

when a person of reasonable firmness under 

the same or similar 

circumstances would fear death or bodily 

injury or caused the victim to suffer 

substantial emotional distress by placing 

the 

victim in fear of death, bodily injury, or 

continued harassment. And, third, that the 

defendant’s actions did, in fact, cause the 

victim substantial emotional distress.
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The evidence presented by the State showed that between 24 

September 2008 and 30 November 2008, the following occurred: 

The victim and defendant were in a relationship for about five 

weeks, until she broke up with defendant. Defendant had been to 

the victim’s apartment on at least one occasion. After the 

victim ended the relationship, defendant continually called her 

phone, despite the victim repeatedly telling him to stop 

contacting her.

On 28 September 2008, the victim and a friend were leaving 

a local bar at approximately midnight, and defendant followed 

the victim in his car, ultimately parking his car behind the 

friend’s vehicle. Defendant exited his vehicle, argued with the 

victim for a few minutes, and left. After this encounter with 

defendant, the victim did not feel safe sleeping at her 

apartment and stayed with her friend. The next day, the victim 

returned to her apartment and found that someone had broken in, 

although nothing was taken from the apartment. Feeling “scared” 

and “terrified[,]” the victim reported the incident to the local 

police department.

On 14 October 2008 at approximately 8:30 a.m., the victim 

was the first person to arrive to work. When she exited her 
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vehicle and walked towards her work building, defendant came out 

of a nearby wooded area, attempting to speak with her. The 

victim was “scared” and “startled” and threatened to call 911. 

Defendant immediately left the area.

On the night of 19 October 2008, the victim was asleep when 

she heard a knock on her door. When she looked through the 

door’s peephole, she saw defendant. The victim did not answer 

the door and went back to sleep. At approximately 2:00 a.m., 

the victim awoke to a clinking sound on the balcony outside her 

bedroom window. She looked through the window and saw defendant 

climbing up a ladder. Fearful of defendant’s conduct, the 

victim called 911, “yelling at the top of [her] lungs to the 

operator, ‘[p]lease send help.’” As the victim was on the 

phone, defendant climbed back down the ladder and ran away.

On 21 October 2008, the victim spent the night at a 

friend’s residence. The next morning, she received a call from 

the Raleigh Police Department. In response, she drove to her 

apartment and found dead rose petals around her door and the 

stairs leading to her door. Later that day, the victim received 

a phone call at work from a woman purporting to be a member of 

“Victim Services.” The woman provided the victim with a phone 

number to call if she needed any assistance with her situation 
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involving defendant. The victim called the following day, but 

defendant answered the phone and said, “[g]otcha.”

Too afraid to sleep in her own apartment, the victim stayed 

with her father. At 6:00 a.m. on 24 October 2008, she went to 

the gym in her father’s apartment complex. When she walked 

backed to her father’s apartment it was still dark outside, and 

defendant appeared from underneath the stairs. Defendant 

stopped the victim and attempted to talk to her, stating, “[d]o 

not believe what the police have told you.” The victim 

screamed, activated her car alarm and ran up the stairs. 

Defendant immediately left the area, and the victim’s father 

unsuccessfully attempted to pursue him on foot. The victim 

reported this incident to the police.

Based on these events, the victim moved to a new apartment 

complex about five miles away and only told her father, uncle, 

grandmother, and some residents of her former apartment complex. 

Two days after the victim moved to the new apartment, and while 

she was walking towards the apartment entrance, defendant 

emerged and stated, “I know it wasn’t cheap for you to move into 

this apartment. Why don’t you come to my truck on the side of 

the building, and I’ll give you some money?” Defendant 

screamed, told him to leave her alone, and he walked away. The 
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victim subsequently obtained a domestic violence protective 

order that was served on defendant on 7 November 2008.

The post-December evidence was far less substantial. 

Although property crimes were committed against the victim and a 

possible GPS tracking device discovered on her car, there was no 

evidence linking defendant to those events.

Given the overwhelming evidence to support each essential 

element of felony stalking occurring between 24 September 2008 

and 30 November 2008 and the lack of post-December evidence

directly attributable to defendant, we reject defendant’s 

argument that had the trial court provided specific jury 

instructions addressing the post-December events and the 

dismissed charge, the jury would have probably reached a 

different verdict.

III. Conclusion

In sum, we dismiss defendant’s contention that the trial 

court erred by allowing the State, without limitation, to argue 

post-December evidence during closing arguments because

defendant invited such error, if any. Moreover, the trial court 

did not commit plain error in its jury instructions because 

defendant has failed to show that absent the purported errors, 

the jury probably would have reached a different result.
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No prejudicial error.

 Judges CALABRIA and DAVIS concur.

Report per Rule 30(e).