Court Opinion

ID: 9563919
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:50:12.703369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:08.315549
License: Public Domain

TYSON, Judge
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I fully concur with that portion of the majority’s opinion affirming the trial court’s denial of Geraldine Lewis Ramos’s (“defendant”) motion to dismiss based upon the sufficiency of the evidence. Although the trial court failed to instruct the jury that the State was required to prove the element of willfulness, defendant failed to show any prejudice by this omission and is not entitled to a new trial. I disagree with that portion of the majority’s opinion granting defendant a new trial based upon the instructions submitted to the jury. I respectfully dissent.
I. Standard of Review
This Court reviews jury instructions contextually and in its entirety. The charge will be held to be sufficient if “it presents the law of the case in such manner as to leave no reasonable cause to believe the jury was misled or misinformed . . . .” The party asserting error bears the burden of showing that the jury was misled or that the verdict was affected by [the] instruction. “Under such a standard of review, it is not enough for the appealing party to show that error occurred in the jury instructions; rather, it must be demonstrated that such error was likely, in light of the entire charge, to mislead the jury.”
*640State v. Blizzard, 169 N.C. App. 285, 296-97, 610 S.E.2d 245, 253 (2005) (quoting Bass v. Johnson, 149 N.C. App. 152, 160, 560 S.E.2d 841, 847 (2002)) (emphasis supplied).
II. Analysis
The majority’s opinion holds the trial court committed reversible error and awards defendant a new trial because the trial court failed to instruct the jury that the State was required to prove that defendant “willfully” deleted the files off of LARC’s computer network. I disagree.
It is well-established that a trial judge is required to instruct the jury on every essential element of the crime charged. State v. Mundy, 265 N.C. 528, 529, 144 S.E.2d 572, 573 (1965); State v. Hunt, 339 N.C. 622, 649, 457 S.E.2d 276, 292 (1994). Here, defendant was charged and convicted of a violation of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-455, which provides:
It is unlawful to willfully and without authorization alter, damage, or destroy a computer, computer program, computer system, computer network, or any part thereof. A violation of this subsection is a Class G felony if the damage caused by the alteration, damage, or destruction is more than one thousand dollars ($1,000). Any other violation of this subsection is a Class 1 misdemeanor.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-455(a) (2005) (emphasis supplied). The trial court correctly instructed the jury on the element of “without authorization[,]” but failed to instruct the jury on willfulness. Based upon principles of statutory interpretation and contrary to the State’s contention, the terms “willfully” and “without authorization” are not interchangeable. See Lithium Corp. of Am. v. Town of Bessemer City, 261 N.C. 532, 535, 135 S.E.2d 574, 577 (1964) (“Ordinarily, when the conjunctive “and” connects words, phrases or clauses of a statutory sentence, they are to be considered jointly.” (Citation omitted)).
The majority’s opinion correctly points out that the failure to instruct the jury on the element of willfulness has been repeatedly held to be harmless error. See State v. Rose, 53 N.C. App. 608, 611, 281 S.E.2d 404, 406 (1981); State v. Maxwell, 47 N.C. App. 658, 660-61, 267 S.E.2d 582, 584, disc. rev. denied, 301 N.C. 102, 273 S.E.2d 307 (1980). Here, our task is to determine whether the trial court’s error prejudiced defendant to entitle her to a new trial. See N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1443(a) (2005) (“A defendant is prejudiced by errors relating to rights arising other than under the Constitution of the United States *641when there is a reasonable possibility that, had the error in question not been committed, a different result would have been reached at the trial out of which the appeal arises. The burden of showing such prejudice under this subsection is upon the defendant.” (Emphasis supplied)).
Although defendant presented evidence tending to show that her supervisor, Aura Camacho-Mass (“Camacho-Mass”), had authorized defendant to delete her personal files from LARC’s computer, other •overwhelming evidence shows that defendant’s actions were unequivocally willful. At trial, Camacho-Mass recounted the events which took place after she had informed defendant of her termination. Camacho-Mass testified defendant “became enraged. Her words and her body language were, were [sic] very violent. And she was crying in my office after she told me many things.” Camacho-Mass further testified that defendant stated she “was a fake” and that “she’ll destroy me in the agency.” Defendant refused to return her office keys and immediately demanded her paycheck. Camacho-Mass informed defendant that she would receive her paycheck at the end of the month. After defendant left the building, Camacho-Mass informed the receptionist that defendant was not to be allowed to re-enter the building without her presence.
Shortly thereafter, Camacho-Mass heard noises outside her office and observed defendant and the receptionist exit defendant’s office carrying drums that were used in the agency’s summer program. Camacho-Mass testified she refrained from commenting on defendant’s presence because she believed the drums belonged to defendant.
Camacho-Mass subsequently observed defendant and the receptionist exit defendant’s office a second time and became “really concerned.” Camacho-Mass sat down at defendant’s computer, opened up the file server, and discovered that all the Teacher Apprenticeship Program (“TAP”) files had been deleted from the agency’s computer network. Camacho-Mass reported defendant’s actions to the police. Camacho-Mass testified that neither defendant nor other personnel had permission to duplicate or remove the TAP files from LARC’s network.
Raleigh Police Detective James Neville (“Detective Neville”) of the cyber crimes unit, confirmed that 304 files were stored on LARC’s flash drive and approximately 80 percent of these files were either deleted or overwritten:
*642The following day, defendant returned to her former workplace and met with Detective B.R. Williams to discuss the missing files. Defendant admitted she had copied the files onto her personal thumb drive “because they [were] her work.” However, defendant also stated “she would give Miss Camacho-Mass’ files back when she got her paycheck.”
The jury also heard additional evidence regarding defendant’s actions after this incident occurred. Defendant sent a “very incriminating letter” to all of the board members implying that Camacho-Mass had engaged in “racial behavior” and was misappropriating agency funds. Defendant’s demeanor, her threat that she would “destroy” Camacho-Mass, her refusal to surrender her keys after termination, and her repeated returns to her former office after termination, the circumstances surrounding the deletion of the files, and defendant’s statement that she had copied the files and would give the files back when “she got her paycheck” unequivocally show defendant’s actions in duplicating and removing the files was willful. Based upon the preceding evidence, no reasonable probability exists that a different result would have been reached at trial if the trial court had instructed the jury on the element of willfulness. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1443.
Defendant has failed to show she was prejudiced by the trial court’s jury instructions and is not entitled to a new trial. Because I would hold that defendant is not entitled to a new trial on this issue, I address defendant’s remaining assignment of error.
III. Sentencing
Defendant argues the trial court erred by sentencing her to a “harsher sentence” than she received in the district court.
A sentence within statutory limits is presumed to be regular. Where the record, however, reveals the trial court considered an improper matter in determining the severity of the sentence, the presumption of regularity is overcome. It is improper for the trial court, in sentencing a defendant, to consider the defendant’s decision to insist on a jury trial. Where it can be reasonably inferred the sentence imposed on a defendant was based, even in part, on the defendant’s insistence on a jury trial, the defendant is entitled to a new sentencing hearing.
State v. Peterson, 154 N.C. App. 515, 517, 571 S.E.2d 883/885 (2002) (internal citation and quotation omitted). In district court, defendant *643was sentenced to a suspended sentence of forty-five days imprisonment and was placed on supervised probation for a period of twelve months. Defendant appealed to the superior court and asserted her right to a jury trial.
After the jury had returned a guilty verdict, the superior court imposed a suspended sentence of forty-five days imprisonment and placed defendant on supervised probation for a period of eighteen months. It is undisputed that the suspended sentence defendant received in superior court was authorized by statute, rested in the presumptive range, and was identical to the suspended sentence she received in district court. Before the superior court judge imposed defendant’s sentence' he stated:
I hope that your counsel told you, as he should have, that I am not bound to do what that district court judge did, and likely to do that, because up here we don’t do that.
They generally give minimum sentences down in district court. But any, any [sic] person who appeals a minimum sentence of the district court, thinks [they are] going to get a better result that you got get [sic] from those people is a fool.
Any lawyer who tells someone to take up an appeal of a minimum sentence out of district court is equally unwise.
Defendant argues the preceding statements are evidence that her sentence was based on irrelevant and improper matters. I disagree. Nothing in the trial court’s comments reveals it considered an improper matter in determining the severity of defendant’s sentence or referred to her “insistence on a jury trial.” Id. The trial court imposed the same suspended sentence defendant had received in district court. I vote to overrule this assignment of error.
IV. Conclusion
The trial court properly denied defendant’s motion to dismiss. The trial court failed to instruct the jury on the element of willfulness contained in N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-455. However, the totality of the evidence presented at trial shows defendant’s actions in copying the files to her personal thumb drive and deleting the files off of LARC’s network were unequivocally unlawful and done “willfully” and without authorization. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1443. Defendant has failed to show she was prejudiced by the trial court’s erroneous jury instruction and is not entitled to a new trial.
*644Nothing in the record supports a reasonable inference that the trial court considered “improper matter[s]” in sentencing defendant or that “the sentence imposed on [] defendant was based, even in part, on [] defendant’s insistence on a jury trial[.]” Peterson, 154 N.C. App. at 517, 571 S.E.2d at 885. Defendant received a fair trial, free from prejudicial errors she preserved, assigned, and argued. I respectfully dissent.