North Carolina Lawyers Weekly

After petitioner was sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act and after Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591 (2015), declared the residual clause of the ACCA unconstitutional, petitioner was allowed a second collateral attack under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

Under North Carolina law, the intent element of assault may be proven by showing culpable negligence, which is insufficient to qualify an assault as a “crime of violence” under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. However, North Carolina’s crime of assault by strangulation ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

Both parties rely heavily on contentions regarding trespass as a reason for officers’ reasonable suspicion to stop defendant. As to the issue of trespass, the trial court found, “That Officer Martin and Officer Slauter testified they observed Defendant enter a ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

Not every domestic dispute constitutes a criminal offense. However, one that prompted a 911 call gave a deputy reasonable suspicion to stop defendant’s vehicle; defendant’s vehicle matched the description of one officers had been told to look for, and defendant ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

The trial court declined to instruct the jury that defendant – a judgment creditor of the victim – could not be guilty of common law robbery if she believed she was recovering her own property; however, the court did instruct ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

Even though a confidential informant’s (CI) contact told her to expect the person delivering her heroin (the runner) to be driving a brown Ford Taurus, since (1) defendant showed up at the appointed time and place in a black Ford ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

In his third motion for appropriate relief, defendant challenges the use of evidence from his accomplices’ trials to establish aggravating factors in his own guilty-plea case. Each claim defendant raised in this MAR was raised in previous MARs, or he ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

In order to enter into a First Offender Drug Education Program Deferral Agreement, defendant acknowledged that he was guilty of possession of drug paraphernalia. However, this did not constitute a conviction within the meaning of G.S. § 15A-1341(a2). The prosecution ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

Even though a former jailer could not remember encountering defendant after he was arrested, the jailer recalled creating a jail incident report about the methamphetamine he found on defendant’s person. The state laid an adequate foundation for admission of the ...

Since the state’s evidence was that defendant asked a fellow jail inmate to murder defendant’s girlfriend when the other inmate was released, if the jury believed the state’s evidence, the jury would necessarily find premeditation. Accordingly, any error in the ...