State v. Mann

Penelope Dawkins and Richard Lockamy helped Charlie Mann (defendant) with household chores and worked at his sawmill. At some point during their acquaintance, Mann told Lockamy and Dawkins that he knew Lockamy had a criminal record and that Lockamy and Dawkins needed money. Mann told Lockamy and Dawkins that he knew of an elderly man who carried large amounts of money in his clothes and would be easy to rob. Mann gave them ideas about how to rob the man and brought up the subject to Lockamy and Dawkins three or four times a week. At one point, Mann told Lockamy that if Lockamy did not rob the man, Mann would either rob the man himself or find someone else to do it. Subsequently, Keith Barts, the manager of the trailer park where Lockamy and Dawkins were staying, revealed that he knew Mann and that Mann had provided him with previous robbery jobs. According to Barts, the robbery of the elderly man would be a good job. Two weeks later, Barts told Lockamy that he had committed the robbery of the elderly man, but that he thought he had killed the man during the robbery. The man had in fact died. After a jury trial, the jury convicted Mann of soliciting Lockamy to commit common-law robbery. The trial court sentenced Mann to seven years in prison on the solicitation conviction, which was a felony. The appellate court found no errors in the trial itself but remanded the case for Mann to be sentenced only for a misdemeanor. The North Carolina Supreme Court granted the State of North Carolina's petition for review.