North Carolina Lawyers Weekly

  Defendant never represented that Tobias Toler’s actions in the moments preceding defendant’s stabbing him had placed defendant in fear of death or great bodily harm such that defendant reasonably believed it was necessary to fatally stab Toler in order ...

A defendant was properly categorized under the Armed Career Criminal Act, or ACCA, because his conviction for assault with intent to murder qualified as a “violent felony” under the statute. Background Kevin Battle appeals from the district court’s denial of ...

In a case of first impression in any circuit, a majority of the court held the federal Hate Crimes Act may be constitutionally applied to an assault of a victim engaged in interstate commercial activity at his place of work. ...

  On direct examination, a police detective said he approached defendant at work, but defendant did not wish to discuss the case. Then, on cross-examination, the detective responded to a question about his investigation by referring to defendant’s accomplice—who was ...

  The state’s evidence showed that (1) defendant knew victim “Jamie Smith” and had accused her and her husband of stealing money and drugs; (2) defendant followed two men (one of whom was armed with a handgun) into Smith’s neighbors’ ...

Defendant’s 2015 act of exposing himself to the victim in her storage shed and saying, “Look what you did to me,” unquestionably tended to show his purpose in assaulting the victim on her patio the following summer. Because the state ...

The district court did not err in sentencing the defendant to a longer term because of three prior convictions for criminal domestic violence, because those convictions categorically qualified as a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act, or ACCA. ...

  In a civil suit in which defendant’s former employer accused her of embezzlement, defendant and the employer entered into a settlement agreement pursuant to which defendant agreed to pay $13,500 and the employer signed a general release. Because the ...

The plea agreement between the state and defendant provided for a consolidated sentence of 290 to 408 months. Because some of defendant’s offenses were committed while another sentencing scheme was in place, the trial court sentenced defendant to two separate ...

  Defendant was charged with two assault offenses: assault by pointing a gun and assault with a deadly weapon. But the state’s only evidence regarding the two alleged assaults came from a single witness’s testimony that, in rapid succession and ...