Court Opinion

ID: 9560917
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:59:06.677997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:20.234256
License: Public Domain

Judge Lewis
dissenting.
I believe there is evidence sufficient from which a jury could infer an intent by the defendant to commit a felony. The State contends the defendant intended to commit a second-degree sexual offense. Such a crime is defined as engaging in a sexual act by force and against the will of another person. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-27.5(a)(l) (1999). The State did not suggest that the defendant intended to rape Ms. Sellew.
The evidence is clear that it was 0130 to 0200 in the early morning. The defendant had no right or reasonable business at that home. Ms. Sellew had heard noises and found the window raised with personal property scattered on the floor from its previous position on the windowsill. The defendant, outside, had not been detected. He could have departed. He did not. He reached in and seized Ms. Sellew by both her arms. Had he intended larceny, he could have already done that or waited and perhaps entered after Ms. Sellew had left the room. He did not. He reached into the room and physically grabbed Ms. Sellew.
Many cases have recited more physical facts as being sufficient to infer an intent by a defendant. In State v. Boon, 35 N.C. 244 (1852), a defendant entered a bedroom in which a female slept, seized her feet but fled after she screamed. In that opinion, by Pearson, J., (later Chief Justice) the court said in part:
The evidence of the intent charged is certainly very slight, but we cannot say there is no evidence tending to prove it. The fact of the breaking and entering was strong evidence of some bad intent; going to the bed and touching the foot of one of the young ladies *500tended to indicate that the intent was to gratify lust. Taking hold of — “grasping” (as the case expresses it) — the ankle, after the foot was drawn up, and the hasty retreat without any attempt at explanation, as soon as the lady screamed, was some evidence that the purpose of the prisoner, at the time he entered, was to gratify his lust by force. It was, therefore, no error to submit the question to the jury.
Id. at 246-27.
No error was found in that case, though the felony there intended was rape. I believe that case is sufficiently similar to this case whereby the jury should have the question of intent submitted to it. The intent for second-degree sexual offense must be inferred here. I do not believe as a matter of law this was insufficient. Therefore, I would vote to find no error.