Court Opinion

ID: 9851304
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:10:28.974819+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:53.252568
License: Public Domain

Justice Copeland
dissenting.
I must dissent because the majority has overlooked a critical omission in the State’s case against defendant, to wit, sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction for murder in the first degree under the felony murder rule.1 The jury would have been authorized to find defendant guilty of the felony murder of the driver-occupant of the vehicle only if the State had demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant committed the homicide in the perpetration of another felony involving the use of a deadly weapon. See G.S. 14-17; State v. Womble, 292 N.C. *623455, 233 S.E. 2d 534 (1977). The State relied on defendant’s violation of G.S. 14-34.1, which proscribes the discharge of a firearm into occupied property, to fulfill that requirement. [It was never disputed that defendant fired the fatal shot killing the decedent.] However, the State did not, in my opinion, adduce substantial evidence against defendant upon every essential element of the underlying felony of G.S. 14-34.1.
In pertinent part, G.S. 14-34.1 provides that “[a]ny person who willfully or wantonly discharges or attempts to discharge . . . [a] firearm into any building, structure, vehicle, aircraft, watercraft, or other conveyance, device, equipment, erection, or enclosure while it is occupied is guilty of a Class H felony.” Our Court has stated that one violates this statute if he intentionally, without legal justification or excuse, discharges a firearm into what he knows, or what he should reasonably know, is an occupied structure. State v. Williams, 284 N.C. 67, 73, 199 S.E. 2d 409, 412 (1973). In my view, therefore, an essential element of G.S. 14-34.1 is the specific intent to discharge a firearm into something. The mere general intent to fire a weapon, standing alone, will not suffice. Indeed, common sense would surely dictate an interpretation of the statute whereby the act of discharging a firearm becomes criminally culpable as a felony only when that act is simultaneously accompanied by, and accomplished with, the distinct reckless or evil intent to shoot into or inside an occupied structure of some kind.
Moreover, in accordance with my belief that a violation of G.S. 14-34.1 requires the kind of specific intent just described, I do not believe, as does the majority, that it is “an inherently incredible proposition” that one could intentionally shoot “at” a fleeing vehicle without intending to shoot “into” it. The words “at” and “into” are not generally considered to be synonymous. See Roget’s International Thesaurus 139-40 (4th ed. 1977); Webster’s New Dictionary of Synonyms 70-71 (1968). In fact, the two words usually have fundamentally different meanings. For example, “at” indicates a presence near something, the location of something or the general direction of an action or motion. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 136 (1976); The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 82 (1969); March’s Thesaurus and Dictionary 78 (1968). On the other hand, “into” primarily denotes a motion specifically directed at attain*624ing the position of being in something, or a movement to an interior location or to the inside of something. Webster, supra, at 1184; The American Heritage Dictionary, supra, at 663; March, supra, at 555. Thus, it is plain to me that one could actually attempt to shoot “at” something without intending to shoot “into” it, especially when that something is a mobile object such as an automotive conveyance capable of quick speed and sudden changes in direction, i.e., a Volkswagen fleeing the scene of a larceny.2
In the instant case, the State’s eyewitnesses testified that defendant came out of the store (after the girl had left without paying for the beer), hollered at the occupants of the Volkswagen and then fired three shots, in rapid succession, as the vehicle continued to move away from the parking lot to the road. [These events occurred in the nighttime.] Everyone agreed that only the second, and possibly the third, shot actually struck the car. These witnesses said that defendant either fired the weapon at, over, across the car, held the gun up or aimed it in the direction of the car. No one could positively remember whether defendant held the pistol with one or two hands at the time of the first shot or thereafter. Yet all of the witnesses did say that, as defendant fired the shots, his hand (or hands) jumped, jerked, bobbed around or moved due to the weapon’s recoil. Officer W. J. Dunn essentially corroborated their observations by stating that a .357 magnum pistol “kicked up” when fired and that its recoil would jerk the shooter’s arm. He further said that such jerking was more pronounced if the shooter was inexperienced or held the gun with only one hand. This is the total sum of what the State’s evidence tended to show upon the essential element of specific criminal intent under G.S. 14-34.1. To me, the evidence was patently insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant intentionally discharged a firearm into an occupied vehicle.
In so saying, I am not inadvertent to the general difficulty in directly proving the existence of a criminal intent in any case, since intent is a subjective state of mind in that of the actor. For that reason, the State must often rely on the nature of the cir*625cumstances surrounding the commission of an act to infer a defendant’s possession of the requisite intent. However, such circumstantial evidence upon an essential element of a crime must still meet the standard of substantiality. Here, the State’s evidence of defendant’s intent in firing the gun is equivocal at best. It did no more than raise a mere suspicion or conjecture about the existence of this essential element of G.S. 14-34.1, and, as a consequence, the jury was improperly allowed to speculate about the criminal nature of defendant’s act of discharging the firearm. See also State v. Hewitt, 294 N.C. 316, 319, 239 S.E. 2d 833, 835 (1978). In short, even considering the State’s evidence in its most favorable light with the benefit of all reasonable inferences, this case constitutes a “draw” on the question of intent.3 As it was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant violated G.S. 14-34.1, it necessarily follows that this felony should not have been submitted to the jury as a basis for finding defendant guilty of murder in the first degree under G.S. 14-17.4 I therefore vote to reverse defendant’s conviction for the more grievous offense upon this ground.
Before concluding, I am compelled to mention another point in the case. The majority rejected defendant’s argument that this Court should adopt the merger doctrine which would prevent a conviction for first degree felony murder where, as here, the underlying felony is a factually integral part of the homicide. See, e.g., People v. Wesley, 10 Cal. App. 3d 902, 89 Cal. Rptr. 377 (1970). I agree with the majority that this is a matter more wisely left to the discretion of the Legislature, the enactor of G.S. 14-17. Yet I strongly believe that implementation of some form of the merger doctrine in this State would be a sound statutory innovation and thus urge the Legislature to examine this important issue. The facts of this particular case demonstrate the need for such action.
*626On 14 July 1980, defendant reported for work as usual from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. at a convenience store. [He had already completed his regular eight-hour shift at another job.] At approximately 10:30 p.m., while three other customers were waiting to pay for their beer, a teenaged girl removed some beer from the store without paying for it, despite defendant’s admonishments that she should not do so. The girl got into a car which began to flee the premises. Defendant, in an attempt to retrieve the stolen property, took his employer’s pistol and, for the first time in twenty-five years, discharged a firearm three times. One of the shots entered into the vehicle and killed the driver. [An autopsy later disclosed that the driver was legally intoxicated at the time.] Defendant’s action was admittedly rash and ill-advised. However, it certainly was not the type of distinctly deliberate and reckless criminal act causing unexpected death which ordinarily justifies the application of the felony murder rule:
The rationale of the doctrine is that one who commits a felony is a bad person with a bad state of mind, and he has caused a bad result, so that we should not worry too much about the fact that the fatal result he accomplished was quite different and a good deal worse than the bad result he intended.
LaFave & Scott, Handbook on Criminal Law § 71, at 560 (1972). Compare, e.g., State v. Swift, 290 N.C. 383, 226 S.E. 2d 652 (1976); State v. Williams, 284 N.C. 67, 199 S.E. 2d 409 (1973); State v. Capps, 134 N.C. 622, 46 S.E. 730 (1904).
In any event, it is difficult to assent to a result mandating life imprisonment of this man, a hardworking husband and father of five children with a good reputation in the community and no prior significant criminal record, for his action in the incident of 14 July 1980. Surely, justice would be well served by the exercise of some executive clemency in his case.
Justices HUSKINS and Exum join in this dissent.

. Defendant failed to raise this specific point in his brief, but he did twice move for a dismissal of the murder charge at trial and excepted to the judge’s denials of his motions. However, it is plain that a legal error of this magnitude should have been corrected by the Court upon its own motion. See G.S. 15A-1441, -1442(3), -1446(d)(5). See also Rule 2, North Carolina Rules of Appellate Procedure.

. I further perceive that one could discharge a firearm at the tires of a departing vehicle, in order to detain it, without also meaning to shoot into its occupied interior compartment.

. Defendant’s evidence that the homicide was an accident was equally convincing, if not more so: the pistol belonged to the owner of the store, and defendant was not familiar with it; he had not shot a firearm of any kind in twenty-five years (since his service in the United States Air Force); he fired the shots in the air to frighten the vehicle’s occupants so they would stop and bring the beer back; and his armed jerked each time he fired the pistol.

. Having said that a felony murder conviction was insupportable, I would also note that the record does not disclose an evidentiary justification for a homicide prosecution beyond the levels of manslaughter or second degree murder.