State v. Costin
State v. Costin
Opinion of the Court
A jury found defendant guilty of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury ("AWDWISI") and not guilty of assault on a female. Both charges arose from an incident on 15 December 2014 in which defendant struck the step-mother of his grandchildren with a .380 caliber pistol, knocking her unconscious and opening a gash on her forehead that required four stitches to close.
The trial court suspended a prison sentence of 20 to 36 months and placed defendant on supervised probation for 36 months. Defendant did not give notice of appeal at trial but returned to court four days later and gave oral notice. Counsel appointed to represent defendant on appeal has since filed a petition for writ of certiorari in this Court as an alternative basis for reviewing the judgment, in the event we find defendant's notice of appeal untimely. See N.C.R. App. P. 21(a)(1) (allowing review by writ of certiorari "when the right to prosecute an appeal has been lost by failure to take timely action").
"Compliance with the requirements for entry of notice of appeal is jurisdictional." State v. Oates,
In his sole claim of error, defendant contends the jury's verdicts finding him guilty of AWDWISI but not guilty of assault on a female are "fatally inconsistent." A review of the trial transcript shows that defendant failed to preserve this issue for our review. Under our Rules of Appellate Procedure,
[i]n order to preserve an issue for appellate review, a party must have presented to the trial court a timely request, objection, or motion, stating the specific grounds for the ruling the party desired the court to make if the specific grounds were not apparent from the context. It is also necessary for the complaining party to obtain a ruling upon the party's request, objection, or motion.
N.C. R. App. P. 10(a)(1). Defendant raised no objection to the trial court's entry of judgment on the jury's guilty verdict, nor did he assert an inconsistency between the two verdicts. Cf. State v. Mumford,
We further find no merit to defendant's claim. In Mumford, our Supreme Court explained the distinction "between verdicts that are merely inconsistent and those which are legally inconsistent and contradictory."
NO ERROR.
Report per Rule 30(e).
Chief Judge McGEE and Judge DILLON concur.
Assault on a female includes essential elements not shared by AWDWISI, requiring a jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was a male at least 18 years of age at the time of the assault and that his victim was female. State v. Herring,
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.