{
  "id": 8557325,
  "name": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. MARGIE BUTLER",
  "name_abbreviation": "State v. Butler",
  "decision_date": "1974-06-05",
  "docket_number": "No. 7419SC405",
  "first_page": "679",
  "last_page": "683",
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      "cite": "21 N.C. App. 679"
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  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "N.C. Ct. App.",
    "id": 14983,
    "name": "North Carolina Court of Appeals"
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    "name_long": "North Carolina",
    "name": "N.C."
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      "cite": "171 S.E. 2d 447",
      "category": "reporters:state_regional",
      "reporter": "S.E.2d",
      "year": 1970,
      "opinion_index": 0
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      "cite": "276 N.C. 157",
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      "year": 1949,
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    {
      "cite": "231 N.C. 106",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "N.C.",
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      "year": 1949,
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      "cite": "52 S.E. 2d 895",
      "category": "reporters:state_regional",
      "reporter": "S.E.2d",
      "year": 1949,
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        {
          "page": "897"
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    {
      "cite": "230 N.C. 312",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "N.C.",
      "case_ids": [
        8629741
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      "year": 1949,
      "pin_cites": [
        {
          "page": "314"
        }
      ],
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        "/nc/230/0312-01"
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    {
      "cite": "170 S.E. 2d 624",
      "category": "reporters:state_regional",
      "reporter": "S.E.2d",
      "year": 1969,
      "opinion_index": 0
    },
    {
      "cite": "6 N.C. App. 587",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "N.C. App.",
      "case_ids": [
        8549668
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      "year": 1969,
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  "analysis": {
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    "char_count": 7872,
    "ocr_confidence": 0.575,
    "pagerank": {
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    "simhash": "1:8ccbf7ee2e0e0186",
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:32:29.924632+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "Chief Judge Brock and Judge Britt concur."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. MARGIE BUTLER"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "CAMPBELL, Judge.\nThe defendant contends that it was error for the trial court to sustain an objection to her testimony as to threats she had received. G.S. 14-33.1 provides:\n\u201cEvidence of former threats upon plea of self-defense. \u2014In any case of assault, assault and battery, or affray in which the plea of the defendant is self-defense, evidence of former threats against the defendant by the person alleged to have been assaulted by him, if such threats shall have been communicated to the defendant before the altercation, shall be competent as bearing upon the reasonableness of the claim of apprehension by the defendant of bodily harm, and also as bearing upon the amount of force which reasonably appeared necessary to the defendant, under the circumstances, to repel his assailant.\u201d\nThe testimony in question was as follows:\n\u201cI had received conversation about the fact or accusations that I had been dating him. I have received threats. On that very day all that happened I had heard, right when I was getting off the school bus, that she was going to shoot me.\nMr. Roberts: The State objects, your Honor.\nThe Court: Sustained.\u201d\nThe testimony of the defendant was hearsay. There was no showing that the alleged threats came from Mrs. Whitaker. The principle of G.S. 14-33.1 that prior threats are admissible in assault cases where the defendant claims self-defense does not apply until the evidence of threats is properly presented. State v. Clontz, 6 N.C. App. 587, 170 S.E. 2d 624 (1969). We would point out that the trial court did not strike the objected to testimony or instruct the jury to disregard it, and thus defendant had the benefit of it anyway.\nThe defendant next assigns as error certain portions of the charge. No exceptions appear in the record and the defendant has not specifically identified those portions of the charge which she finds objectionable. This would be grounds for overruling defendant\u2019s assignments of error. 1 Strong, N. C. Index 2d, Appeal and Error, Sec. 31 (1967). However, we have decided to consider the merits. Defendant contends that it was error for the trial court to fail to charge on communicated threats as they relate to apparent necessity and what force defendant might lawfully have used to repel the alleged assault by Mrs. Whitaker. However, there was no competent evidence of any communicated threats made by the prosecuting witness and no charge on this point was warranted.\nDefendant further contends that the trial court erred in its definition of \u201creasonable doubt\u201d in that the court did not charge that a reasonable doubt may be based on a lack of evidence. No error was committed in the instant case for the judge did not charge \u201cthat a reasonable doubt is a doubt based upon reason and common sense and growing out of the evidence in the case.\u201d It is when those words are used that it is error not to go further and add \u201cor the lack of evidence or from its deficiency.\u201d State v. Braxton, 230 N.C. 312, 314, 52 S.E. 2d 895, 897 (1949). The trial court fully charged on reasonable doubt in this case as follows:\n\u201c A reasonable doubt is not a vain, imaginary or fanciful doubt, but a sane, rational doubt. The proof beyond a reasonable doubt means that you must be fully satisfied, entirely convinced or satisfied to a moral certainty of the defendant\u2019s guilt.\u201d State v. Bryant, 231 N.C. 106, 55 S.E. 2d 922 (1949).\nFinally, the defendant assigns as error the failure of the trial court to define the term \u201caggressor\u201d when he charged the jury that self-defense was only an excuse if the defendant was not the aggressor or if she voluntarily entered the fight but thereafter attempted to abandon the fight and gave notice to her opponent of her intention to abandon the fight. The trial court\u2019s charge on self-defense was correct. The use of the undefined term \u201caggressor\u201d was not error as it is a word of common usage and in the absence of a request for special instructions such words need not be defined. State v. Jennings, 276 N.C. 157, 171 S.E. 2d 447 (1970).\nWe have considered defendant\u2019s other assignments of error and find them without merit. Defendant had a fair trial free from prejudicial error.\nNo error.\nChief Judge Brock and Judge Britt concur.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "CAMPBELL, Judge."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Attorney General Robert Morgan by Associate Attorney Robert P. Gruber and Associate Attorney Norman Sloan for the State.",
      "S. H. McCall, Jr., by Carl W. Atkinson for defendant appellant."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. MARGIE BUTLER\nNo. 7419SC405\n(Filed 5 June 1974)\n1. Assault and Battery \u00a7 13\u2014 self-defense pleaded \u2014 evidence of prior threats \u2014\u2022 inadmissibility\nThe principle of G.S. 14-33.1 that prior threats are admissible in assault cases where the defendant claims self-defense did not apply in this ease since there was no evidence that threats allegedly made to defendant were made by defendant\u2019s victim.\n2. Assault and Battery \u00a7 15\u2014 failure to charge on communicated threats \u2014 no error\nThe trial court did not err in failing to charge on communicated threats as they relate to apparent necessity and on the force defendant might lawfully have used to repel the alleged assault by the prosecuting witness, since there was no competent evidence of any communicated threats made by the prosecuting witness.\n3. Criminal Law \u00a7 112\u2014 charge on reasonable doubt\nThe trial court did not err in failing to charge that a reasonable doubt may be based on a lack of evidence since it is required that such instruction be given only in conjunction with the instruction that \u201ca reasonable doubt is a doubt based upon reason and common sense and growing out of the evidence in the case.\u201d\n4. Assault and Battery \u00a7 15; Criminal Law \u00a7 119\u2014 failure to define the term aggressor in instructions \u2014 no error\nThe trial court did not err in failing to define the term \u201caggressor\u201d when he charged the jury that self-defense was only an excuse if the defendant was not the aggressor or if she voluntarily entered the fight but thereafter attempted to abandon the fight and gave notice to her opponent of her intention to abandon the fight, since \u201caggressor\u201d is a word of common usage, and in the absence of a request for special instructions such words need not be defined.\nAppeal by defendant from Seay, Judge, at the 22 October 1973 Session of Montgomery Superior Court.\nHeard in the Court of Appeals 14 May 1974.\nThe defendant was charged in a bill of indictment with assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill, inflicting serious injury not resulting in death. The State\u2019s evidence tended to show that on 5 April 1973 one Carol Whitaker entered Broadway\u2019s Grill in Troy, North Carolina, to look for her nephew. On the way in, Mrs. Whitaker was warned that Margie Butler, who apparently had been seen with Mrs. Whitaker\u2019s husband in the past, was downstairs. When Mrs. Whitaker got downstairs, the defendant pulled something out of her chest and ran into Mrs. Whitaker. Mrs. Whitaker grabbed the defendant\u2019s wrist and noticed she had a knife and that blood was gushing from her [Mrs. Whitaker\u2019s] shoulder. The parties then struggled over the knife and fell to the floor with the defendant at one point saying, \u201cTake it, bitch, if you can.\u201d and \u201cI\u2019ll kill you.\u201d Two men in the grill then stopped the fight by pulling the parties apart.\nThe defendant\u2019s evidence tended to show that when Mrs. Whitaker came down the steps, she started across the room towards the defendant with her hand in her sweater. The defendant figured Mrs. Whitaker had something, so the defendant pulled her own knife. Mrs. Whitaker grabbed the defendant, they struggled and the defendant was thrown to the floor. It was then that the defendant began using the knife. From a verdict of guilty of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and a sentence of three years in the custody of the Commissioner of Corrections as a committed youthful offender, the defendant appealed.\nAttorney General Robert Morgan by Associate Attorney Robert P. Gruber and Associate Attorney Norman Sloan for the State.\nS. H. McCall, Jr., by Carl W. Atkinson for defendant appellant."
  },
  "file_name": "0679-01",
  "first_page_order": 707,
  "last_page_order": 711
}