Court Opinion

ID: 9572258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:40:10.977182+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:09.777440
License: Public Domain

Justice Mitchell
concurring.
I concur in the holding of the majority and in the reasoning employed by the majority to reach that holding. I find myself unable, however, to agree with one statement of law made by the *306majority, which I feel is incorrect and not necessary to the result reached.
The majority states that:
Where the homicide is perpetrated by means of poison, lying in wait, imprisonment, starving or torture, all of which require planning or purpose, the law conclusively presumes that the murder was committed with premeditation and deliberation, and where the evidence produced at trial supports a finding that the murder was so perpetrated, a defendant can properly be convicted of first degree murder. State v. Duboise, 279 N.C. 73, 181 S.E. 2d 393 (1971); State v. Hedrick, 232 N.C. 447, 61 S.E. 2d 349 (1950); State v. Dunheen, 224 N.C. 738, 32 S.E. 2d 322 (1944). See Barfield v. Harris, 540 F. Supp. 451, 468 (E.D.N.C. 1982).
Although the authorities cited by the majority support the quoted proposition, I believe that they were erroneous when decided or that the principle so stated was unnecessary to the decision of those cases and constitutes mere obiter dicta and not binding authority. When a homicide is perpetrated by means of poison, lying in wait, imprisonment, starving or torture, the law does not presume, conclusively or otherwise, that the murder was committed with premeditation and deliberation. Instead, the presence or absence of premeditation and deliberation is irrelevant. As the majority correctly points out, a defendant may be guilty of both murder in the first degree by one of the aforementioned methods and guilty of murder in the first degree by reason of premeditation and deliberation on the same set of facts. Premeditation and deliberation are not, however, elements of murder in the first degree perpetrated by means of poison, lying in wait, imprisonment, starving or torture. A conviction of murder in the first degree is appropriate in these cases if it is shown that the defendant intentionally killed the victim by such means, and nothing else need be shown.
Prior to 1893 any intentional and unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought constituted murder punishable by death. Since 1893, G.S. 14-17 and its predecessors have not changed the definition of murder. The statute merely divides murders into two categories for purposes of imposing punishment. Those classified as murders in the first degree remain, as at com*307mon law, punishable by death. Included among this classification are murders perpetrated by means of poison, lying in wait, imprisonment, starving or torture, and the statute does not require that these crimes be premeditated or deliberate in order to be murder in the first degree and punishable by death as at common law. See State v. Davis, 305 N.C. 400, 290 S.E. 2d 574 (1982), for a more complete history of the evolution of the statute and its effect on the common law.
For the foregoing reasons, I am unable to agree with or concur in the quoted statement from the majority opinion. I entirely agree with the majority, however, that the trial judge’s duty to instruct on the lesser offense of murder in the second degree must be placed within the context of an evidentiary determination and that such an instruction is not required in every case in which the defendant is tried for murder in the first degree by premeditation and deliberation. With this single exception, I completely concur in Justice Meyer’s correct, scholarly and well documented opinion on behalf of the majority.