State v. Walters

HUSKINS, Justice.

At the close of all the evidence defendant moved that he be permitted to read to the jury G.S. 14-17 and G.S. 14-18, including the statutory provisions pertaining to punishment for first and second degree murder and manslaughter. This motion was denied “with respect to any reading of the punishment provisions.” Defendant assigned this denial as error, and the Court of Appeals awarded him a new trial on that basis. The State’s appeal challenges the correctness of that decision.

G.S. 84-14 provides, in part: “In jury trials the whole case as well of law as of fact may be argued…