State v. Meader

269 N.C.App. 446

838 S.E.2d 643

STATE of North Carolina

v.Faye Larkin MEADER, Defendant.

No. COA19-554

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Filed: January 21, 2020

Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Assistant Attorney General Matthew Baptiste Holloway, for the State.

The Green Firm, PLLC, by Bonnie Keith Green, for defendant-appellant.

YOUNG, Judge.

Where the evidence, taken in the light most favorable to the defendant, did not show that defendant was so intoxicated as to be incapable of forming intent, the trial court did not err in denying defendant's request to instruct the jury on voluntary intoxication or diminished capacity. We find no error.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

The relevant and undisputed facts of this case are as follows: On 22 November 2017, Faye Larkin Meader (defendant) arrived at the office of Family Solutions, appearing and behaving in an intoxicated manner. Law enforcement was contacted to remove her from the premises. While defendant was present, clients at Family Solutions discovered their car door open. Several items of personal property were missing from the vehicle, and when police arrived to detain defendant, they discovered them on her person. On 24 September 2018, defendant was indicted for felony breaking or entering a motor vehicle, misdemeanor larceny, and misdemeanor possession of stolen goods or property.

Prior to trial, defendant filed notice of intent to offer the defense of voluntary intoxication or diminished capacity. The matter proceeded to trial. At the jury charge conference, defendant requested an instruction on voluntary intoxication or diminished capacity, on the basis that "each and every witness testified that Ms. Meader was intoxicated." The trial court denied this request.

The jury returned verdicts finding defendant guilty on all three charges. The trial court sentenced defendant to 30 days imprisonment on the charge of misdemeanor larceny, and entered a suspended sentence of 30 months, to begin upon defendant's release from prison on the charges of larceny and breaking or entering a motor vehicle. Having entered sentences on those two charges, the trial court arrested judgment on the charge of possession of stolen goods.

Defendant appeals.

II. Standard of Review

"[Arguments] challenging the trial court's decisions regarding jury instructions are reviewed de novo by this Court." State v. Osorio , 196 N.C. App. 458, 466, 675 S.E.2d 144, 149 (2009). "When determining whether the evidence is sufficient to entitle a defendant to jury instructions on a defense or mitigating factor, courts must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to defendant." State v. Mash , 323 N.C. 339, 348, 372 S.E.2d 532, 537 (1988).

III. Request for Jury Instruction

In her sole argument on appeal, defendant contends that the trial court erred in denying her request for a jury instruction on voluntary intoxication. We disagree.

"Voluntary drunkenness is not an excuse for a criminal act, but in certain instances, it may be sufficient to negate the requisite intent element of a crime." State v. Kyle , 333 N.C. 687, 698, 430 S.E.2d 412, 418 (1993). "Where a specific intent element is an essential element of the offense charged, voluntary intoxication may negate the existence of that intent." Id . at 698-99, 430 S.E.2d at 418. "Evidence of mere intoxication, however, is not enough to meet defendant's burden of production. He must produce substantial evidence which would support a conclusion by the judge that he was so intoxicated that he could not form [the requisite intent]." Mash , 323 N.C. at 346, 372 S.E.2d at 536.

The evidence must show that at the time of the [alleged crime] the defendant's mind and reason were so completely intoxicated and overthrown as to render him utterly incapable of forming [the requisite intent]. State v. Shelton , 164 N.C. 513, 79 S.E. 883 (1913). In the absence of some evidence of intoxication to such degree, the court is not required to charge the jury thereon. State v. McLaughlin , 286 N.C. 597, 213 S.E.2d 238 (1975). The question then, in this case, is whether there was evidence that defendant was intoxicated to such extent that he was utterly incapable of forming a specific intent to [commit the crime charged] so as to require an instruction on intoxication by the trial judge.

State v. Medley , 295 N.C. 75, 79-80, 243 S.E.2d 374, 377 (1978).

In the instant case, defendant contends that, "viewed in a light most favorable to her, there was substantial evidence that her mind and reason were so completely intoxicated and overthrown as to render her utterly incapable of forming the requisite intent for felony breaking and entering a motor vehicle and misdemeanor larceny and possession of stolen goods."

In support of this position, defendant notes that the original call to which police responded was "a dispatch of an intoxicated subject[,]" and that an officer testified that, when he first encountered defendant, "she just appeared to be either intoxicated or impaired by an illegal substance." The officer further testified that defendant, while inside of a business and in front of witnesses, pulled down her pants to display a bruise on her groin. Defendant also notes that the witness who called police said defendant "seemed intoxicated[;]" that another witness testified that defendant seemed "a little disoriented, agitated[,]" and "[h]er speech, her kind of line of thinking was going in a lot of different directions[;]" and that another witness described her peculiar, giggling behavior and unusual conversational topics. Defendant also cites additional testimony and evidence that she was incoherent, that she may have been hallucinating, and that she smelled of alcohol.

The State notes, however, that this paints an incomplete picture of the evidence at trial. While officers were initially called to deal with an intoxicated individual, and a number of witnesses described defendant as such, defendant was not arrested for intoxication. To the contrary, one of the witnesses observed that, while defendant appeared "agitated," she was "fairly cooperative" in response to questioning, and was "just answering" the questions put to her by officers. Moreover, evidence showed that she was aware of her circumstances. Once officers had placed her in custody for the possession of stolen goods, and had placed her in the back of the police car, she asked witnesses, "don't let them ... take me to jail."

Defendant cites State v. Keitt for the principle that her voluntary intoxication served as a defense to the felonious intent required in the crimes charged, and that it was error to deny her request for a jury instruction. See State v. Keitt , 153 N.C. App. 671, 571 S.E.2d 35 (2002), aff'd per curiam, 357 N.C. 155, 579 S.E.2d 250 (2003). However, the facts of that case are distinguishable. In Keitt , a witness testified that the defendant "was so intoxicated that he was unable to ride a bicycle or even walk home on his own[;]" another witness testified that the defendant "was barely able to stand on his own[;]" and another witness testified that the defendant "had trouble navigating and fumbled with the door and the screen door[.]" Id . at 677, 571 S.E.2d at 39. In the instant case, by contrast, there was no testimony that defendant stumbled or suffered from limited mobility, nor even that her speech was slurred. Rather, the evidence merely suggested that she smelled of alcohol and was behaving somewhat erratically.

We hold that the facts of this case are, instead, more closely aligned with those of State v. Wilson-Angeles , 251 N.C. App. 886, 795 S.E.2d 657 (2017). In that case, as in this case, the defendant argued that the evidence was sufficient to entitle her to an instruction on voluntary intoxication. In support of this argument, the defendant cited "various behaviors exhibited by Defendant on the night in question, including, inter alia , yelling profanities, inexplicably singing hymns, claiming to be the victim, attempting to take her shirt off to show law enforcement an injury, and passing out at the police department." Id . at 897, 795 S.E.2d at 666. We held, however, that while the evidence did show that the defendant "was intoxicated to some degree[,]" it was insufficient to entitle her to a voluntary intoxication instruction. Id . We went on to note that the evidence "did not establish how much alcohol Defendant had consumed prior to committing the crime at issue, which case law suggests is information of significant consequence to the determination of whether a defendant is entitled to a voluntary intoxication instruction." Id . Nor did the evidence "tend to show the length of time over which Defendant had consumed alcohol before committing the [crime] in this case, a showing which must be made before a defendant is entitled to this instruction." Id . We therefore held that defendant was "not entitled to a voluntary intoxication instruction." Id. at 898, 795 S.E.2d at 667.

Our reasoning in Wilson-Angeles was not novel. In State v. Ash , 193 N.C. App. 569, 577, 668 S.E.2d 65, 71 (2008), this Court held that while there was some evidence that the defendant was intoxicated while committing the crime charged, "there was no evidence as to exactly how much he consumed prior to the commission of the crime at issue[,]" which, taken with other evidence in that case, supported the trial court's decision not to instruct the jury on voluntary intoxication. Similarly, in State v. Geddie , 345 N.C. 73, 95, 478 S.E.2d 146, 157 (1996), cert. denied , 522 U.S. 825, 118 S.Ct. 86, 139 L. Ed. 2d 43 (1997), our Supreme Court held that "[e]vidence tending to show only that defendant drank some unknown quantity of alcohol over an indefinite period of time before the murder does not satisfy the defendant's burden of production."

Defendant is correct that there was ample evidence of defendant's intoxication at the time of the offenses charged. However, mere intoxication is not...