Court Opinion

ID: 9572831
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:45:03.280625+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:34:27.907507
License: Public Domain

ELMORE, Judge.
On 9 January 2006, a jury found Broderick Terrell Morris (defendant) guilty of second-degree kidnapping and assault inflicting serious injury. On 11 January 2006, the trial court entered judgment against defendant, consolidated defendant’s convictions for sentencing, and sentenced defendant to twenty to thirty-three months in prison. Defendant now appeals, contending that the trial court’s amendment of the indictment against him substantially altered the charge and unfairly prejudiced his defense. Because we hold that the trial court’s amendment of the indictment was in error, we vacate defendant’s kidnapping conviction, grant him a new trial on that charge, and remand for resentencing.
On 26 November 2004, defendant allegedly broke into his girlfriend’s home, argued with her, and beat her severely. His girlfriend, Freda, called her mother, Berta, the next day, requesting that Berta *482take her to the hospital. When Berta asked Freda why, Freda told her that she and defendant “got into it, that he had broke in that night.”
As Berta was not able to leave work, Berta and Freda called Freda’s sister, Misty. Misty took Freda to the hospital, where Freda repeated her story to doctors and police, stating that defendant broke into her home, held her against her will, and beat her.
At trial, however, Freda recanted her former statements, claiming that on the night in question, she let defendant into her home; that they argued, in part, over defendant’s involvements with other women; that defendant attempted to leave several times; that as defendant attempted to leave, Freda tried to kick him in the back, and in the process fell, thus sustaining injuries; that defendant was concerned for her health and asked to take her to the hospital but that Freda refused; and that in response to Freda yelling at him as he left, defendant punched and broke the window on his way out. Freda explained her claimed prior lack of honesty by stating that her family did not approve of defendant and that she feared that they would be angry and cease helping her financially if she admitted to having consented to seeing defendant.
Freda’s testimony was contradicted by the testimony given by Berta, Misty, Officer Robert A. Murfitt, Detective Veda Strother, and Doctor Michael Thomason. Defendant offered no evidence in his defense.
On appeal, defendant first contends that the trial court erred in amending the kidnapping indictment. We agree.
The original bill of indictment alleges that:
[O]n or about and between the 26th day of November, 2004, and the 27th day of November, 2004, in Mecklenburg County, Broderick Terrell Morris did unlawfully, willfully and feloniously kidnap Freda . . ., a person who had attained the age of sixteen (16) years, by unlawfully confining her, restraining her, and removing her from one place to another, without her consent, and for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a felony. Freda . . . was seriously injured.
At trial, the judge amended the indictment, stating, “Given the State’s position [that it announced at the beginning of trial its intention to proceed on a second-degree, rather than first-degree, kidnapping theory], and the Defendant’s lack of objection . . . this bill of *483indictment should be amended to reflect the charge that the State’s proceeding on . . . .” Accordingly, the trial judge made the following changes: “The last sentence, Freda . . . , was seriously injured would be stricken. The last sentence, therefore, would read confining, restraining her, and removing her from one place to the other without her consent for the purpose of facilitating inflicting serious injury.”
Our Supreme Court recently stated,
In enacting Chapter 15A of the General Statutes, the Criminal Procedure Act, the General Assembly provided that a bill of indictment may not be amended. This Court has interpreted that provision to mean a bill of indictment may not be amended in a manner that substantially alters the charged offense. In determining whether an amendment is a substantial alteration, we must consider the multiple purposes served by indictments, the primary one being to enable the accused to prepare for trial.
State v. Silas, 360 N.C. 377, 379-80, 627 S.E.2d 604, 606 (2006) (quotations, citations, and alterations omitted).
Our General Statutes define the crime of kidnapping, in pertinent part, as follows:
(a) Any person who shall unlawfully confine, restrain, or remove from one place to another, any other person 16 years of age or over without the consent of such person, or any other person under the age of 16 years without the consent of a parent or legal custodian of such person, shall be guilty of kidnapping if such confinement, restraint or removal is for the purpose of:

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(2) Facilitating the commission of any felony or facilitating flight of any person following the commission of a felony; or
(3) Doing serious bodily harm to or terrorizing the person so confined, restrained or removed or any other person
(b) There shall be two degrees of kidnapping as defined by subsection (a). If the person kidnapped . . . had been seriously injured . . ., the offense is kidnapping in the first degree and is punishable as a Class C felony.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-39 (2005) (emphasis added).
*484Defendant contends that by changing the alleged purpose of the “confinement, restraint or removal,” the State substantially altered the indictment, to the detriment of his ability to prepare for trial. The State counters that the change in the indictment merely specified on which of the two purposes listed in the original indictment the State chose to proceed.
Contrary to the State’s suggestion, it is clear from reading the original indictment that the State originally alleged that defendant confined, restrained, or removed Freda “for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a felony.” Likewise, the inclusion of the allegation that she “was seriously injured” was obviously intended to elevate the crime to the first degree. The change was a substantial alteration. ■
This conclusion is consistent with our prior holdings in analogous cases. See, e.g., State v. Brown, 312 N.C. 237, 247-48, 321 S.E.2d 856, 862-63 (1984) (granting a new kidnapping trial where a judge instructed that the defendant could be found guilty if he removed, restrained or confined the alleged victim for the purpose of terrorizing her, rather than for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a felony, as alleged in the indictment); State v. Bailey, 97 N.C. App. 472, 478-79, 389 S.E.2d 131, 134 (1990) (granting a new trial for a kidnapping charge on the basis of a variance between the indictment, which alleged that the victim was not released in a safe place, and the jury instruction, which alleged infliction of serious bodily harm).
We therefore hold that the trial court erred in its amendment of the indictment. Defendant’s second and third assignments of error, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel, are not properly before this Court.1 Accordingly, we remand for a new trial on the kidnapping charge and resentencing, and find no error in defendant’s assault inflicting serious injury conviction.
No error in part, new trial in part.
Judge GEER concurs.
Judge HUNTER dissents in part and concurs in part by separate opinion.

. As defendant notes in his brief, “[m]ost ineffective assistance claims are properly brought in a motion for appropriate relief rather than on direct appeal.” This is not the rare case in which an ineffective assistance claim can properly be litigated on the face of the record. We therefore decline to address the merits of this issue.