State of North Carolina v. David Ordis Lawrence

Summary

The Supreme Court of North Carolina clarified the plain error standard of review for unpreserved instructional or evidentiary error, holding that a defendant must demonstrate fundamental error — prejudice shown by establishing that, after examination of the entire record, the error had a probable impact on the jury's finding of guilt — and that, because plain error is applied cautiously and only in the exceptional case, qualifying errors will often also seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Applying the clarified standard, the Court held that the trial court's conceded omission of the endanger-or-threaten-life element from its conspiracy-to-commit-robbery-with-a-dangerous-weapon instruction was not plain error, because overwhelming evidence, including two co-conspirators' testimony, established the agreement element and showed the jury probably would have returned the same verdict. The Court reversed the Court of Appeals, which had granted a new trial on the conspiracy charge after applying an incorrect 'likely to mislead the jury' formulation drawn from a prior intermediate appellate decision. No separate opinions were filed.