holding that "legal provocation" existed to support a voluntary manslaughter instruction were defendant beat victim to death with a hammer after victim assaulted defendant with a knife
How later courts described this case
- holding that "legal provocation" existed to support a voluntary manslaughter instruction were defendant beat victim to death with a hammer after victim assaulted defendant with a knife
- finding failure to instruct on a lesser included offense charged in the bill of indictment and supported by the evidence violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
- failure to instruct on second-degree murder when warranted is error of constitutional dimensions, and entitles the defendant to a new trial unless the State proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the outcome would have been the same even if the lesser-included offense was submitted
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Mitchell
concurring.
The result reached by the majority here is consistent with this Court’s decision in State v. Thomas, 325 N.C. 583 , 386 S.E.2d 555 (1989). I dissented from the decision of the majority in Thomas , and I continue to believe that the reasoning of my dissent in that case was correct. Id. at 600-606 , 386 S.E.2d at 564-68 (Mitchell, J., dissenting, joined by Webb, J.). However, the doctrine of stare decisis — which commands that courts abide by established binding precedent except in the most extraordinary circumstances — requires that I now accept Thomas as authoritative and concur in the decision of the majority in the present case.