State v. Blankenship

MITCHELL, Justice.

The defendant contended in the Court of Appeals that the trial court had committed reversible error by failing to instruct the jury on a theory of self-defense. The Court of Appeals agreed and awarded the defendant a new trial. We reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.

The State’s evidence tended to show that on 22 November 1984, Joy Wright invited Betty Jean Dixon to her apartment in Washington, North Carolina (the original city of that name in this *153country) for Thanksgiving dinner. Wright had been living with her boyfriend, the victim Charles S. Foster, for two…