State v. Fields

374 N.C. 629

843 S.E.2d 186

STATE of North Carolina

v.Melvin Lamar FIELDS

No. 170A19

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Filed June 5, 2020

Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Lisa Bradley, Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State-appellant.

Richard Croutharmel, Raleigh, for defendant-appellee.

DAVIS, Justice.

In this case, we address the interplay between the offenses of habitual misdemeanor assault, felony assault inflicting serious bodily injury, and misdemeanor assault inflicting serious injury. Based upon our application of principles of statutory construction, we agree with the Court of Appeals that defendant could not be separately convicted and punished for the offenses of both habitual misdemeanor assault and felony assault inflicting serious bodily injury stemming from the same act. However, because defendant's conviction for habitual misdemeanor assault should have been arrested rather than vacated, we modify and affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand for further proceedings.

Factual and Procedural Background

The assault in this case occurred around midnight on 2 November 2015, when defendant Melvin Lamar Fields assaulted A.R.,¹ a transgender woman. A.R., defendant, and a third person had met at defendant's home that evening to engage in a mutual sexual encounter. While the three were showering, defendant seized A.R. by the hair and used his other hand to roughly grab her genitals.

A.R. attempted to push defendant away and told him to let her go, stating, "Stop, you're hurting me." Defendant refused to release her and continued to squeeze her genitals. Defendant then said, "Let you go huh?" and slammed her to the floor, resulting in A.R. hitting her head on the side of the bathtub. Defendant then jumped on top of her and put his hands around her neck while screaming at her.

A.R. noticed that blood was running down her leg and told defendant that she was hurt and needed to leave. At first, defendant tried to prevent her from leaving, but eventually she was able to get dressed and drive herself to the hospital. As a result of the incident, A.R. needed 15 stitches to repair the wound to her scrotum.

On the day after the incident, defendant contacted A.R. multiple times asking that she not tell the police what had happened. However, A.R. chose to file a police report, and defendant was subsequently indicted on 15 August 2016 by the Durham County grand jury for felony assault inflicting serious bodily injury (felony assault) and malicious maiming of a privy member. On 6 February 2017, the grand jury issued a superseding indictment charging defendant with attempted malicious castration or maiming of a privy member, felony assault, and habitual misdemeanor assault.

A trial was held in Superior Court, Durham County, beginning on 8 January 2018. The trial court instructed the jury on two felony offenses—felony assault and attempted castration or maiming. Prior to trial, defendant stipulated to two prior misdemeanor assault convictions within the past 15 years. Based on this stipulation, instead of also submitting the offense of habitual misdemeanor assault to the jury, the trial court submitted the predicate misdemeanor offense of assault inflicting serious injury (misdemeanor assault).

On 11 January 2018, the jury found defendant guilty of misdemeanor assault and felony assault. The jury found as an aggravating factor that defendant had taken advantage of a position of trust or confidence to commit the offense. The trial court proceeded to impose sentences upon defendant for the offenses of felony assault and habitual misdemeanor assault. Defendant was sentenced to a minimum of 19 months imprisonment and a maximum of 32 months for the felony assault offense and to a minimum of 9 months and a maximum of 20 months for the habitual misdemeanor assault offense with the two sentences to run consecutively. Defendant appealed his convictions to the Court of Appeals.

Defendant raised two main arguments on appeal. First, he contended that there was insufficient evidence to submit the felony assault charge to the jury because A.R. did not suffer a serious bodily injury. Second, he argued that the trial court erred in entering judgment and sentencing him for the crime of habitual misdemeanor assault in light of his simultaneous conviction and sentencing for felony assault.

On the first issue, the Court of Appeals determined that sufficient evidence was introduced at trial to permit the jury to find that A.R. suffered a serious bodily injury.² State v. Fields , 827 S.E.2d 120, 122–23 (N.C. Ct. App. 2019). With regard to the second issue, the Court of Appeals held that the trial court had erred in entering judgment and sentencing defendant on both the felony assault and habitual misdemeanor assault convictions given that both offenses arose from the same act. Id. at 125. Based on this determination, the Court of Appeals vacated the trial court's judgment on the offense of habitual misdemeanor assault. Id.

In a separate opinion, Judge Berger concurred in part and dissented in part. Id. at 126 (Berger, J., dissenting). Judge Berger agreed with the Court of Appeals majority that there was sufficient evidence to submit the felony assault charge to the jury but disagreed that the habitual misdemeanor assault conviction should have been vacated. Id. at 126–27 (Berger, J., dissenting).

On 21 May 2019, the State filed a notice of appeal based upon Judge Berger's dissent as well as a petition for discretionary review seeking review of additional issues. We allowed the State's petition for discretionary review on 14 August 2019.

Analysis

The primary issue in this appeal is whether defendant could lawfully be convicted and sentenced for both habitual misdemeanor assault and felony assault where both offenses arose from the same assaultive act. In order to analyze this issue, it is necessary to review the three separate statutes implicated by his convictions.

The statute establishing the offense of habitual misdemeanor assault provides, in pertinent part, as follows:

A person commits the offense of habitual misdemeanor assault if that person violates any of the provisions of G.S. 14-33 and causes physical injury ... and has two or more prior convictions for either misdemeanor or felony assault, with the earlier of the two prior convictions occurring no more than 15 years prior to the date of the current violation.... A person convicted of violating this section is guilty of a Class H felony.

N.C.G.S. § 14-33.2 (2019).

Subsection 14-33, which is the statute governing the crime of misdemeanor assault, states, in relevant part, as follows:

(c) Unless the conduct is covered under some other provision of law providing greater punishment , any person who commits any assault, assault and battery, or affray is guilty of a Class A1 misdemeanor if, in the course of the assault, assault and battery, or affray, he or she:

(1) Inflicts serious injury upon another person ...

N.C.G.S. § 14-33(c)(1) (2019) (emphasis added). Finally, the statute addressing felony assault provides that "any person who assaults another person and inflicts serious bodily injury is guilty of a Class F felony." N.C.G.S. § 14-32.4(a) (2019).³

The Court of Appeals’ decision was based largely on the proposition that defendant could not be separately convicted and punished for both misdemeanor assault and felony assault based on the same conduct due to the above-quoted prefatory language contained in the misdemeanor assault statute. In applying the prefatory language, the Court of Appeals reasoned that defendant's conduct was , in fact, "covered under some other provision of law providing greater punishment"—namely, the felony assault statute—given that a violation of the misdemeanor assault statute is only a misdemeanor while a violation of the felony assault statute is a felony. Fields , 827 S.E.2d at 124–25. The Court of Appeals concluded that this same rationale precluded defendant from being punished for habitual misdemeanor assault given that the habitual misdemeanor assault conviction was "expressly predicated" on the underlying offense of misdemeanor assault. Id. at 124.

In its appeal, the State asks us to reject the Court of Appeals’ analysis, arguing that the trial court did not err by entering judgment on defendant's convictions and sentencing him for both felony assault and habitual misdemeanor assault. Although the State does not dispute the fact that both convictions were based on the same assaultive act, the State asserts that the above-quoted prefatory language in the misdemeanor assault statute is inapplicable here given the fact that misdemeanor assault was merely used as an element of habitual misdemeanor assault. The State contends that because judgment was not actually entered on the misdemeanor assault offense and defendant was not sentenced based on his conviction for that offense, the prefatory language in the misdemeanor assault statute has no relevance here. The State further points to the fact that no analogous prefatory language is contained in the habitual misdemeanor assault statute.

The parties’ arguments raise issues of statutory construction. It is well-established that "[t]he intent of the Legislature controls the interpretation of a statute." State v. Joyner , 329 N.C. 211, 217, 404 S.E.2d 653 (1991) (citation omitted). If the language of a statute is unambiguous, this Court "will give effect to the plain meaning of the words without resorting to judicial construction." State v. Byrd , 363 N.C. 214, 219, 675 S.E.2d 323, 325 (2009) (citation omitted). "Moreover, where more than one statute is implicated, the Court must construe the statutes in pari materia and give effect, if possible, to all applicable provisions." Meza v. Div. of Soc. Servs. , 364 N.C. 61, 66, 692 S.E.2d 96, 100 (2010) (citation omitted).

Although this Court has not previously had occasion to address the specific issue raised in this case, we interpreted...