{
  "id": 8523022,
  "name": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. RALPH OGBURN",
  "name_abbreviation": "State v. Ogburn",
  "decision_date": "1983-02-01",
  "docket_number": "No. 8218SC690",
  "first_page": "598",
  "last_page": "600",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "60 N.C. App. 598"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "N.C. Ct. App.",
    "id": 14983,
    "name": "North Carolina Court of Appeals"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 5,
    "name_long": "North Carolina",
    "name": "N.C."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T17:52:46.639047+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "Judges Johnson and Eagles concur."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. RALPH OGBURN"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "HEDRICK, Judge.\nDefendant assigns error to the trial court\u2019s refusal to instruct the jury on self-defense. At trial, the State offered evidence tending to show that the defendant and his wife got into an argument, and the wife grabbed the defendant\u2019s \u201cpants\u201d and took a pistol from one of the pockets. Defendant took the gun away from his wife and shot her in the head inflicting serious and permanent personal injuries.\nThe defendant told the officer: \u201cI don\u2019t know how many times I hit her but I know I emptied the gun.\u201d\nAt trial the defendant testified as follows:\nShe reached in my pants pocket, pulled out the gun, and when she pulled out the gun, she pulled the trigger. I grabbed her hand and, you know, she fired it this way a few times. She fired \u2014 I don\u2019t know how many times \u2014 but she fired this way toward the wall, because she tried to fire at me. I was pushing her hand away like this so she finally got the gun up towards me like she was going to shoot me in the head and I ducked and pushed and when I ducked and pushed, the bullet hit the left side of her head and that\u2019s exactly how it happened.\nWe hold that the evidence presented by the defendant was not sufficient to warrant an instruction by the judge on self-defense. The evidence was sufficient to require instructions on the defense of accident and the trial judge properly gave such a charge to the jury. According to the defendant he did not shoot the victim at all. Rather, the gun accidentally discharged while in the victim\u2019s hand when the defendant pushed the victim\u2019s hand and ducked. An instruction on self-defense would have in effect suggested that the defendant was justified in shooting the victim, an act which from his testimony he did not do. Therefore, the trial court did not err in refusing defendant\u2019s request for an instruction on self-defense.\nDefendant\u2019s second assignment of error pertains to the exclusion of evidence relating to the character of the victim. The evidence in question was offered to show the defendant\u2019s reasonable apprehension of bodily harm in developing his defense of self-defense. Since the issue of self-defense is one not borne out by the evidence, we find the second assignment of error raised in defendant\u2019s brief without merit.\nWe find the defendant had a fair trial free from prejudicial error.\nNo error.\nJudges Johnson and Eagles concur.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "HEDRICK, Judge."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Attorney General Rufus L. Edmisten, by Assistant Attorney General James E. Magner, Jr. for the State.",
      "W. Steven Allen for the defendant, appellant."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. RALPH OGBURN\nNo. 8218SC690\n(Filed 1 February 1983)\nHomicide \u00a7 28.1\u2014 instruction on self-defense not required\nIn this prosecution for felonious assault, the trial court was not required to instruct the jury on self-defense where defendant\u2019s testimony tended to show that a gun accidentally discharged while in the victim\u2019s hand when the defendant pushed the victim\u2019s hand and ducked, since such evidence tended to show an accident rather than self-defense.\nAppeal by defendant from Davis, Judge. Judgment entered 11 March 1982 in Superior Court, Guilford County. Heard in Court of Appeals 13 January 1983.\nDefendant was charged in a proper bill of indictment with assaulting Pandora Ogburn (his wife) with a deadly weapon with intent to kill by shooting her in the head with a pistol inflicting serious injury.\nDefendant was found guilty as charged, and appealed to this court from a judgment imposing a prison sentence of twenty years.\nAttorney General Rufus L. Edmisten, by Assistant Attorney General James E. Magner, Jr. for the State.\nW. Steven Allen for the defendant, appellant."
  },
  "file_name": "0598-01",
  "first_page_order": 630,
  "last_page_order": 632
}