Title: State v. Hembree
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 86A12
State: north-carolina
Issuer: north-carolina Supreme Court
Date: April 10, 2015

NO. COA13-495 
NORTH CAROLINA COURT OF APPEALS 
Filed: 7 January 2013 
 
 
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 
 
 
v. 
 
Gaston County 
No. 11 CRS 7113 
ADRIAN TAREL EPPS, 
Defendant. 
 
 
 
 
Appeal by defendant from judgment entered 25 September 2012 
by Judge Hugh B. Lewis in Gaston County Superior Court.  Heard in 
the Court of Appeals 26 September 2013. 
 
Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Special Deputy Attorney 
General Amar Majmundar, for the State. 
 
Michael E. Casterline for defendant-appellant. 
 
 
STEELMAN, Judge. 
 
 
Where the evidence at trial showed that defendant acted 
voluntarily in stabbing McGill, resulting in his death, the trial 
court did not err in declining to instruct the jury on involuntary 
manslaughter. 
I. Factual and Procedural Background 
On 6 May 2011, Adrian Tarel Epps (defendant) was hosting a 
social event at his house.  One of the guests was defendant’s 
cousin, who brought her boyfriend, Antwan McGill (McGill).  A fight 
-2- 
 
 
occurred in the yard between defendant and McGill, and defendant 
was beaten by McGill.  Defendant returned to the house by the 
screen door to the kitchen.  McGill followed defendant to the 
house.  When McGill approached the screen door, defendant stabbed 
him through the door.  McGill was dead on arrival at the hospital 
emergency room.  The coroner found McGill’s death to have resulted 
from a single stab wound. 
Defendant was charged with first-degree murder.  At the jury 
instruction conference, defendant requested an instruction on the 
lesser offense of involuntary manslaughter.  The trial court denied 
that request.  The trial court instructed the jury on first-degree 
murder, second-degree murder, and voluntary manslaughter, as well 
as the defenses of self-defense and the castle doctrine.  On 25 
September 2012, the jury found defendant guilty of voluntary 
manslaughter.  The jury also found the existence of two aggravating 
factors.  The trial court found defendant to be a prior felony 
record level IV, and sentenced defendant to an aggravated range 
sentence of 121-155 months imprisonment. 
Defendant appeals. 
 
 
 
-3- 
 
 
II. Involuntary Manslaughter 
In his sole argument on appeal, defendant contends that the 
trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on the lesser 
offense of involuntary manslaughter.  We disagree. 
A. Standard of Review 
“[Arguments] 
challenging 
the 
trial 
court’s 
decisions 
regarding jury instructions are reviewed de novo by this Court.” 
State v. Osorio, 196 N.C. App. 458, 466, 675 S.E.2d 144, 149 
(2009). “The prime purpose of a court’s charge to the jury is the 
clarification of issues, the elimination of extraneous matters, 
and a declaration and an application of the law arising on the 
evidence.” State v. Cameron, 284 N.C. 165, 171, 200 S.E.2d 186, 
191 (1973), cert. denied, 418 U.S. 905, 41 L. Ed. 2d 1153 (1974). 
“[A] trial judge should not give instructions to the jury which 
are not supported by the evidence produced at the trial.” Id. 
“Where jury instructions are given without supporting evidence, a 
new trial is required.” State v. Porter, 340 N.C. 320, 331, 457 
S.E.2d 716, 721 (1995).  
B. Analysis 
“An instruction on a lesser-included offense must be given 
only if the evidence would permit the jury rationally to find 
defendant guilty of the lesser offense and to acquit him of the 
-4- 
 
 
greater.” State v. Millsaps, 356 N.C. 556, 561, 572 S.E.2d 767, 
771 (2002).  In the instant case, defendant contends that the 
evidence at trial would have permitted the jury to find defendant 
guilty of involuntary manslaughter and to acquit him of the other 
homicide charges. 
“The elements of involuntary manslaughter are: (1) an 
unintentional killing; (2) proximately caused by either (a) an 
unlawful act not amounting to a felony and not ordinarily dangerous 
to human life, or (b) culpable negligence.”  State v. Fisher, ___ 
N.C. App. ___, ___, 745 S.E.2d 894, 901 (2013) (quoting State v. 
Hudson, 345 N.C. 729, 733, 483 S.E.2d 436, 439 (1997)).  Thus, for 
the jury to be given an instruction on involuntary manslaughter, 
there must have been evidence presented to show that (1) defendant 
lacked intent, and that (2) the action causing McGill’s death 
either (a) did not amount to a felony and was not ordinarily 
dangerous to human life, or (b) was the result of culpable 
negligence. 
At trial, the evidence presented was that defendant fought 
with McGill, and that defendant retreated to the kitchen.  The 
evidence further showed that defendant stabbed McGill through the 
screen door, that the knife had a 10-12 inch blade, that 
defendant’s arm went through the screen door up to the elbow, and 
-5- 
 
 
that the stab wound pierced McGill’s lung and nearly pierced his 
heart, and was approximately four and one-half inches deep.   
Defendant contends that he was intoxicated and barely aware of his 
actions; that he was afraid for his life and acting to fend off an 
attack; and that his actions were reckless but not intended to 
cause death. 
Defendant relies on State v. Debiase, 211 N.C. App. 497, 711 
S.E.2d 436, disc. review denied, 365 N.C. 335, 717 S.E.2d 399 
(2011).  In Debiase, defendant and the victim, guests at a party, 
got into an altercation, which concluded with defendant striking 
the victim with a bottle, inflicting an injury from which the 
victim eventually died.  We held that: 
despite 
the 
fact 
that 
Defendant 
acted 
intentionally at the time that he struck Mr. 
Lien with the bottle, the evidence contained 
in the present record is susceptible to the 
interpretation that, at the time that he 
struck Mr. Lien, Defendant did not know and 
had no reason to believe that the bottle would 
break or that the breaking of the bottle would 
inflict a fatal wound to Mr. Lien's neck. 
Death resulting from such a series of events 
would, under the previous decisions of this 
Court and the Supreme Court, permit an 
involuntary manslaughter conviction. 
 
Debiase, 211 N.C. App. at 506, 711 S.E.2d at 442.  We held that 
the trial court erred by declining to instruct the jury on the 
-6- 
 
 
lesser-included offense of involuntary manslaughter, and remanded 
for a new trial. 
The facts of the instant case are distinct from those in 
Debiase.  In Debiase, defendant was holding the bottle during the 
fight.  As a result, the jury was permitted to consider the 
possibility that his use of the bottle was not intentional.  In 
the instant case, however, defendant was not armed with the knife 
during the fight, nor was defendant involved in an altercation at 
the time of the fatal stabbing.  Sometime after the fight had 
ended, defendant was in the kitchen, inside of the house, when 
McGill approached the screen door.  Defendant consciously grabbed 
the knife, which he had not been previously holding, and stabbed 
McGill through the screen door. 
Defendant cites us to numerous other cases with fact patterns 
similar to the facts in Debiase, reaching the same result.  In 
each of those cases, a defendant instinctively or reflexively 
lashed out, involuntarily resulting in the victim’s death.  In the 
instant case, however, defendant’s conduct was entirely voluntary.  
The evidence in the record shows that defendant’s conduct was 
intentional, and that the stabbing was not an action which was (a) 
not a felony, or (b) resulting from culpable negligence.  Based 
-7- 
 
 
upon our review of the record, we see no evidence which would have 
merited an instruction on involuntary manslaughter. 
We hold that the trial court did not err by refusing to 
instruct the jury on the lesser-included offense of involuntary 
manslaughter. 
NO ERROR. 
Judge BRYANT concurs. 
Judge HUNTER, ROBERT C. dissenting.
NO. COA13-495 
NORTH CAROLINA COURT OF APPEALS 
Filed: 7 January 2014 
 
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, 
 
 
 
 
v. 
 
Gaston County 
No. 11 CRS 7113 
ADRIAN TAREL EPPS, 
Defendant. 
 
 
 
 
 
HUNTER, Robert C., Judge, dissenting. 
 
 
Based on decisions by this Court and our Supreme Court and 
taking the evidence in the light most favorable to defendant, I 
believe the evidence would permit a reasonable jury to find 
defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter.  Consequently, I 
would conclude that the trial court committed reversible error in 
failing to charge the jury on involuntary manslaughter and that 
defendant is entitled to a new trial. 
Background 
 
On 6 May 2011, Adrian Epps (“defendant”) and his girlfriend, 
Jamie Vittatoe (“Ms. Vittatoe”), decided to have a small get-
together at their home near the town of Stanley, North Carolina.  
They invited defendant’s cousin Anitra Adams (“Ms. Adams”) who 
invited her boyfriend of two months Antwan Rashard McGill (“Mr. 
McGill”).  After Ms. Adams and Mr. McGill arrived, around 8 or 9 
that night, Ms. Adams asked if defendant had any orange juice to 
-2- 
 
 
mix with vodka.  Defendant replied that they did not; instead, he 
cut up lime wedges for her to squeeze into her drinks.  Over the 
course of the evening, the couples drank alcohol and smoked 
marijuana.  While no one was able to definitively establish how 
much the parties drank, several of the witnesses testified that 
both defendant and Mr. McGill were quite intoxicated.  In fact, 
one witness testified that defendant was so intoxicated that he 
was “stumbling” around and fell down twice.  Moreover, several 
witnesses claimed that Mr. McGill got sick in the bathroom from 
consuming too much alcohol.  According to the postmortem toxicology 
report, Mr. McGill had a blood alcohol level of .16 and a small 
amount of Xanax in his system.     
 
At some point during the evening, defendant and Mr. McGill 
began arguing; the witnesses provided contradictory accounts of 
the altercation.  Defendant contended that the argument started 
when Mr. McGill made a derogatory comment about Ms. Vittatoe.  
Defendant and Mr. McGill went outside where a physical fight 
ensued.  Defendant claimed that Mr. McGill pulled his legs out 
from under him and beat him so severely that defendant passed out 
twice.  When defendant woke up the first time during the fight, he 
felt “dizzy.”  At this point, while defendant was still on the 
ground, Mr. McGill kicked him in the face, and defendant stated 
-3- 
 
 
that it felt like his face “exploded” and his ears began ringing.  
When he woke up the second time, defendant alleged that he saw Ms. 
Adams and Mr. McGill sitting in Ms. Adams’s car in the driveway.  
Defendant went back inside his house through a screen door located 
off a side porch.  Defendant stated that he was in severe pain, 
his head was “killing” him, he felt lightheaded, and his vision 
was blurry.  Defendant left the outside door propped open because 
he believed Mr. McGill and Ms. Adams were leaving.  When he entered 
the kitchen, defendant and Ms. Vittatoe began cleaning the blood 
out of his mouth.  Defendant heard footsteps outside on his 
driveway.  He turned and saw Mr. McGill coming toward the screen 
door.  Fearing that Mr. McGill was coming back to hurt him further 
or to harm Ms. Vittatoe, defendant ran to the screen door and held 
it shut.  During the struggle, defendant claimed he heard Ms. Adams 
yell something about a gun.  At this point, defendant grabbed the 
knife he had used earlier to cut limes, turned, and stabbed once 
through the closed screen door.  Defendant testified that he 
“wasn’t trying to pay attention to exactly where [he] might hit 
[Mr. McGill] at, or how hard [he] might’ve swung the knife, or 
anything like that.”  Defendant went on to allege:  
I wasn’t trying to gauge I’m going to hit [Mr. 
McGill] here with [the knife], I’m going to 
hit him there with it, I’m going to use this 
much force, I’m not going to use that much 
-4- 
 
 
force, I’m going to pull back at this moment 
of that moment.  None of that was going through 
my head.  Only thing was going through my head 
was I need to protect myself.  I was in fear 
for my life that it was going to either be my 
life or his life.   
 
Ms. Adams and Devan Williams, a friend of Mr. McGill’s, took 
Mr. McGill to the hospital where he was pronounced dead in the 
emergency room.  According to the pathologist who performed the 
autopsy, Mr. McGill died as a result of excessive bleeding from a 
single stab wound in his upper chest.   
 
At trial, defendant requested the trial court instruct on 
involuntary manslaughter.  However, the trial court denied his 
request because involuntary manslaughter did not “apply” and noted 
defendant’s objection for purposes of an appeal.  The jury was 
instructed on first-degree murder, second-degree murder, voluntary 
manslaughter, and the defenses of self-defense and defense of 
habitation.  The jury found defendant guilty of voluntary 
manslaughter.  The trial court sentenced defendant to a minimum of 
121 months to a maximum of 155 months imprisonment.  Defendant 
appealed. 
Argument 
 
Defendant’s sole argument on appeal is that the trial court 
committed reversible error by refusing to instruct the jury on 
involuntary manslaughter.  Specifically, defendant contends that 
-5- 
 
 
although there was contradictory evidence presented at trial, 
there was sufficient evidence presented to permit the jury to find 
him guilty of involuntary manslaughter.    Taking the evidence in 
a light most favorable to defendant, I agree.   
 
“[Arguments] 
challenging 
the 
trial 
court’s 
decisions 
regarding jury instructions are reviewed de novo by this Court.”  
State v. Osorio, 196 N.C. App. 458, 466, 675 S.E.2d 144, 149 
(2009).  “An instruction on a lesser-included offense must be given 
only if the evidence would permit the jury rationally to find 
defendant guilty of the lesser offense and to acquit him of the 
greater.”  State v. Millsaps, 356 N.C. 556, 561, 572 S.E.2d 767, 
771 (2002).  “In determining whether the evidence is sufficient to 
support the submission of the issue of a defendant’s guilt of a 
lesser included offense to the jury, courts must consider the 
evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant.”  State v. 
Debiase, 211 N.C. App. 497, 504, 711 S.E.2d 436, 441 (internal 
quotation marks omitted), disc. review denied, 365 N.C. 335, 717 
S.E.2d 399 (2011).  Our Supreme Court has noted that “[c]onflicts 
in the evidence are for the jury to resolve, not this Court” when 
deciding whether the trial court erred in not submitting an 
instruction on involuntary manslaughter.  State v. Lytton, 319 
N.C. 422, 427, 355 S.E.2d 485, 488 (1987).  “It is reversible error 
-6- 
 
 
for the trial court to fail to instruct on a lesser offense when 
evidence has been introduced which supports the finding of such a 
lesser offense.”  State v. Fisher, 318 N.C. 512, 524, 350 S.E.2d 
334, 341 (1986). 
Involuntary manslaughter is a lesser included offense of 
second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.  State v. Thomas, 
325 N.C. 583, 591, 386 S.E.2d 555, 559 (1989).  Unlike voluntary 
manslaughter which requires that a defendant have an intent to 
kill, see State v. Wilkerson, 295 N.C. 559, 579, 247 S.E.2d 905, 
916 (1978), “involuntary manslaughter can be committed by the 
wanton and reckless use of a deadly weapon such as a firearm [see 
State v. Wallace, 309 N.C. 141, 305 S.E.2d 548 (1983)] or a knife 
[see State v. Fleming, 296 N.C. 559, 251 S.E.2d 430 (1979)][,]” 
State v. Buck, 310 N.C. 602, 605, 313 S.E.2d 550, 552 (1984). 
Here, the evidence, when taken in the light most favorable to 
defendant, could support a verdict of involuntary manslaughter 
based on the theory that defendant killed Mr. McGill as a result 
of his reckless use of the knife.  At trial, defendant’s own 
testimony establishes that he was not trying to intentionally 
inflict a fatal wound; specifically, defendant testified that he 
was not aiming at any particular area on Mr. McGill’s body or 
consciously using any specific amount of force.  Instead, his 
-7- 
 
 
testimony indicates that he was acting instinctively and 
reflexively when he grabbed the knife, turned, and made a single 
stabbing motion toward Mr. McGill through a closed screen door.  
While it is uncontroverted that defendant intentionally used the 
knife, our Supreme Court has made it clear that the element of 
intent for purposes of manslaughter is whether the defendant 
intended to inflict a fatal wound, not whether the use of the 
weapon was intentional.  See Buck, 310 N.C. at 607, 313 S.E.2d at 
553 (concluding that the trial court erred in not submitting the 
involuntary manslaughter instruction when “[the] defendant was 
wielding the butcher knife generally to defend against a felonious 
assault upon him, [but] the actual infliction of the fatal wound, 
according to [the] defendant, was not intentional”).  While the 
testimony of other witnesses contradicts defendant’s testimony 
concerning his lack of intent to kill Mr. McGill, their testimony 
does not matter because the trial court must consider the evidence 
in a light most favorable to defendant.  Thus, the conflict in the 
evidence was for the jury to resolve, not the trial court by 
refusing to submit the lesser included offense to the jury.  
Consequently, I believe that defendant’s own description of the 
events coupled with the fact that Mr. McGill was struck only once 
through a closed screen door during the altercation was enough to 
-8- 
 
 
warrant the submission of the involuntary manslaughter instruction 
to the jury.   
Unlike the majority, I believe the facts of these case are 
similar to those of Debiase.  There, during an altercation, the 
defendant struck the victim with a beer bottle; although several 
of the witnesses claimed that the defendant struck him multiple 
times, defendant alleged to only have hit the victim once.  
Debiase, 211 N.C. App. at 499-501, 711 S.E.2d at 438-39.  The 
victim died as a result of massive blood loss from a “gaping wound” 
on his neck.  Id. at 498, 711 S.E.2d at 437-38.  The victim also 
suffered a second, superficial wound on his head.  Id.  The 
pathologist who conducted the autopsy contended that both wounds 
could only have come from a broken beer bottle.  Id.  This suggested 
that the beer bottle broke at some point during the defendant’s 
altercation with the victim. 
At trial, the court refused to give an instruction on 
involuntary manslaughter.  This Court reversed, concluding that 
the evidence, when taken in the light most favorable to the 
defendant, had the tendency to show that the defendant did not 
intend to kill or seriously injure the victim.  Id. at 504, 711 
S.E.2d at 441.  In order to reach its conclusion, the Court 
-9- 
 
 
reviewed numerous decisions of both this Court and our Supreme 
Court noting, in pertinent part, that: 
despite the fact that [the] [d]efendant acted 
intentionally at the time that he struck [the 
victim] 
with 
the 
bottle, 
the 
evidence 
contained in the present record is susceptible 
to the interpretation that, at the time that 
he struck [the victim], [the] [d]efendant did 
not know and had no reason to believe that the 
bottle would break or that the breaking of the 
bottle would inflict a fatal wound to [the 
victim’s] neck. 
 
Id. 
Like Debiase, I believe that the evidence in the present case 
was sufficient to support a reasonable conclusion that Mr. McGill’s 
death resulted from defendant’s reckless use of the knife.  It is 
uncontroverted that defendant and Mr. McGill had been engaged in 
a physical altercation which resulted after both had been consuming 
alcohol and drugs for several hours.  Defendant’s own testimony 
suggests that he reacted instinctively when he believed Mr. McGill 
was coming to hurt either himself or Ms. Vittatoe.  In his 
testimony, defendant claimed that he struck at Mr. McGill without 
any conscious effort to hit him in any particular way.  Moreover, 
the way in which he wounded Mr. McGill supports his contention 
that he was acting unintentionally.  During the struggle, defendant 
swung the knife only once through a closed screen door.  As a 
result, I believe the evidence in the present case was 
-10- 
 
 
“susceptible,” Debiase, 211 N.C. App. at 504, 711 S.E.2d at 441, 
to an interpretation that defendant did not intend to inflict a 
fatal wound when he swung once at Mr. McGill with the knife.   
Moreover, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that 
Debiase is distinguishable because: (1) the altercation between 
Mr. McGill and defendant was over by the time defendant stabbed 
Mr. McGill; and (2) defendant had not been holding the knife when 
the fight began but, instead, grabbed it from the table once they 
were struggling at the door.  While the fight between defendant 
and Mr. McGill had momentarily ceased at the time defendant entered 
his kitchen and began cleaning his wounds, Mr. McGill resumed his 
attack by trying to come in defendant’s home.  In addition, while 
the majority is correct that the Debiase defendant had the bottle 
in his hand prior to the altercation intensifying, id. at 499-502, 
711 S.E.2d at 438-440, our Supreme Court has concluded that a 
defendant who grabs a weapon during the fight may still be entitled 
to the involuntary manslaughter instruction.  See Buck, 310 N.C. 
at 603-604, 313 S.E.2d at 551-52 (holding that a defendant was 
entitled to an involuntary manslaughter jury instruction when the 
defendant’s testimony was that he “instinctively” grabbed a 
butcher knife off a table to scare the victim).  Thus, as in 
Debiase, defendant produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable 
-11- 
 
 
jury to find him guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and the trial 
court erred in not giving the instruction on it. 
In so concluding, I am mindful of other cases in which our 
Courts have held that a defendant was not entitled to an 
instruction on involuntary manslaughter when there was no evidence 
that the killing was unintentional other than the defendant’s own 
claim that he had not meant to kill and his actions were such that 
“[f]atal consequences were not improbable.”  Fisher, 318 N.C. at 
526, 350 S.E.2d at 342.  In Fisher, the defendant used a hunting 
knife during a fight and testified that he used it to 
“indiscriminately cut[] and jab[]” the victim.  Id.  While the 
defendant contended he was entitled to an instruction on 
involuntary 
manslaughter 
because 
the 
victim’s 
death 
was 
accidental, this Court disagreed, noting that  
In this case, the defendant admits that he 
knowingly slashed and stabbed the deceased 
with a hunting knife.  The defendant’s use of 
a knife indicates a clear intent to inflict 
great bodily harm or death on the deceased.  
There can be no claim of accidental injury 
where one knowingly and willingly uses a knife 
to slash and stab his victim.  Fatal 
consequences were not improbable in light of 
the defendant’s use of his hunting knife in 
such a manner.  As such, the defendant’s 
actions would not fit within the definition of 
involuntary manslaughter and therefore the 
defendant would not qualify for such an 
instruction. 
 
-12- 
 
 
Id. at 525-26, 350 S.E.2d at 342.   
Here, however, the manner in which defendant killed Mr. 
McGill, a single stabbing motion through a closed screen door 
during a struggle where both parties were intoxicated and defendant 
claimed to be “dizzy” and in severe pain, supports the theory that 
Mr. McGill’s death was unintentional.  In other words, unlike 
Fisher where the defendant’s own actions conflicted with his claim 
that he did not intend to kill the victim, the manner in which 
defendant used the knife in the present case does not.  Fatal 
consequences were not necessarily probable based on the manner in 
which defendant used the knife.  Thus, I believe the facts at issue 
here are distinguishable from those cases because the record 
contains evidence other than defendant’s “mere claim of lack of 
intent,” Debiase, 211 N.C. App. at 509, 211 S.E.2d at 444, that 
supports defendant’s contention that he did not intend to kill or 
injure Mr. McGill in any particular way.  Consequently, I believe 
defendant’s actions fit within the definition of involuntary 
manslaughter when the evidence is taken in the light most favorable 
to defendant.   
Conclusion 
In summary, while acknowledging that there was contradictory 
evidence presented at trial, I must respectfully dissent from the 
-13- 
 
 
majority as I believe that the trial court erred in not submitting 
an instruction to the jury on involuntary manslaughter when taking 
the evidence in the light most favorable to defendant.  Thus, I 
would hold that defendant is entitled to a new trial.