State v. Hicks

Summary

The Supreme Court of North Carolina reversed the Court of Appeals and held that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the State, was sufficient to support instructing the jury on the aggressor doctrine. The court relied on conflicting accounts, physical evidence, the victim's gunshot wounds to the back, and evidence that defendant may have prevented the victim from leaving. The case was remanded to the Court of Appeals to consider defendant's separate plain-error argument concerning the admission of two exhibits.