Court Opinion

ID: 9852122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:24:51.007804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:22.811930
License: Public Domain

Judge Lewis
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Significantly, defendant was being tried here for both the assault on Mr. Jones and the assault on his sister, Ms. Vereen. I believe evidence of the prior 1994 assault of Ms. Vereen was admissible, at least with respect to the present assault on Ms. Vereen. Rule 404(b) explicitly allows evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or bad acts when such evidence is used to show intent. Although neither misdemeanor assault inflicting serious injury under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-33(c)(1) nor misdemeanor assault on a female under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-33(c)(2) are specific intent crimes, that does not mean, as the majority suggests, that intent is not an element of each offense. Both assaults are still general intent crimes and thus require a showing that defendant acted intentionally. See State v. *288Davis, 68 N.C. App. 238, 244, 314 S.E.2d 828, 832 (1984) (“[I]ntent is an essential element of [misdemeanor] criminal assault. . . State v. Musselwhite, 59 N.C. App. 477, 481, 297 S.E.2d 181, 184 (1982) (“All that is necessary to sustain a conviction for assault is evidence of an overt act showing an intentional offer by force and violence to do injury to another sufficient to put a person of reasonable firmness in apprehension of immediate bodily harm.”) (emphasis added); N.C.P.I., Crim. 208.60 (instruction for assault inflicting serious injury); N.C.P.I., Crim. 208.70 (instruction for assault on a female).
Because intent is an essential element of the two assault offenses here, intent became a material issue; therefore, evidence of defendant’s prior bad acts was admissible if such evidence tended to show his intent. And here, I believe defendant’s prior assault of Ms. Vereen in 1994 did tend to establish his intent with respect to the present assault on her. In this regard, I find State v. Wilborn, 23 N.C. App. 99, 208 S.E.2d 232 (1974), particularly instructive. In Wilborn, the defendant was charged with discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle, assault with a deadly weapon, and misdemeanor assault by pointing a shotgun. Id. at 99-100, 208 S.E.2d at 232. None of these offenses were specific intent crimes. In its case-in-chief, the State attempted to introduce, evidence of an assault by defendant against one of the victims that had occurred three years beforehand. Id. at 101, 208 S.E.2d at 233. The Wilborn Court held that the evidence of the prior assault was indeed admissible to show defendant’s state of mind. Id. I believe Wilbom is sufficiently analogous to the case at hand, as both cases involve three-year-old assaults being introduced to show intent for purposes of misdemeanor assaults. Accordingly, I conclude that the trial court committed no error in admitting evidence of the 1994 assault. See also Musselwhite, 59 N.C. App. at 479-80, 297 S.E.2d at 183 (allowing evidence of prior threats and a slap on the victim’s face to show intent in a case involving both felony and misdemeanor assaults).
Furthermore, even if it was error to admit evidence of the prior assault, I believe the error was harmless. To receive a new trial, defendant must show “a reasonable possibility that, had the error in question not been committed, a different result would have been reached at the trial.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1443(a) (1999). I fail to see how introduction of the evidence with respect to defendant’s prior assault of Ms. Vereen amounted to prejudicial error. First, the evidence of the 1994 assault was sparse, to say the least. The transcript from the trial contains fifteen pages of detailed testimony by Ms. *289Vereen regarding the assaults for which defendant was tried. In that testimony, she made one passing reference to the prior assault, which then elicited three brief follow-up questions by the prosecutor. I doubt that these limited and rather non-descript references to the prior assault so affected the minds of the jury that there was a reasonable possibility of acquittal absent such references. I also note that defendant, in taking the stand, had an opportunity to explain that assault. In fact he did so, claiming that the 1994 assault was in self-defense. The jurors might very well have believed this testimony, too, as they acquitted him of the charge of assault on Ms. Vereen.
Second, and more importantly, there was ample evidence before the jury to convict defendant of the assault on Mr. Jones in the absence of evidence with respect to the prior assault on Ms. Vereen. The testimony of Ms. Vereen and the two other State’s witnesses all affirmatively pointed to defendant as the aggressor in this incident, refuting the notion that defendant acted in self-defense. In light of this abundance of inculpatory evidence, the admission of the sparse references to the 1994 assault did not prejudice defendant in such a way as to tip the scales of justice against him.