Trial court judges aren’t required to accept guilty pleas from defendants who tell the court during plea hearings that they are in fact innocent, a divided North Carolina Court of Appeals has ruled. Kenneth Chandler had agreed to plead ...

Tagged with: Guilty Plea

The Court of Appeals correctly found that it had jurisdiction to review the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to dismiss a DWI charge; however, the Court of Appeals improperly let the lack of a procedural mechanism stand in the ...

Tagged with: Guilty Plea

Holding: The trial judge erroneously told defendant that possession of a controlled substance with the intent to sell a Schedule I controlled substance carried a maximum punishment of 24 months when the actual potential maximum sentence is 39 months; nevertheless, ...

Tagged with: Guilty Plea

State v. Arrington (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-236-17, 22 pp.) (Mark Davis, J.) (Philip Berger Jr., J., dissenting) Appealed from Buncombe County Superior Court (Alan Thornburg, J.) N.C. App. Holding: Defendant’s stipulation that he should be sentenced at Level V constituted ...

Tagged with: Guilty Plea

State v. Zubiena (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-002-17, 26 pp.) (Mark Davis, J.) (Wendy Enochs, J., dissenting) Appealed from Buncombe County Superior Court (William Coward, J.) N.C. App. Holding: Where defendant pled guilty, was sentenced, unsuccessfully moved to withdraw her guilty ...

Tagged with: Guilty Plea

State v. Ross (Lawyers Weekly No. 010-012-17, 11 pp.) (Cheri Beasley, J.) Appealed from Cleveland County Superior Court (James Morgan, J.) On discretionary review from the Court of Appeals. N.C. S. Ct. Holding: Although defendant contends that he filed a ...

Tagged with: Guilty Plea

State v. McGill (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-344-16, 22 pp.) (Wendy Enochs, J.) Appealed from New Hanover County Superior Court (W. Allen Cobb Jr., J.) N.C. App. Holding: Defendant pleaded guilty, hoping that the information he intended to provide the state ...

Tagged with: Guilty Plea

State v. Robinson (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-326-16, 15 pp.) (Donna Stroud, J.) Appealed from Burke County Superior Court (Jeffrey Hunt, J.) N.C. App. Holding: A defendant may stipulate to a prior out-of-state conviction being classified as the default Class I ...

Tagged with: Guilty Plea

LUMBERTON, N.C. (AP) — A man serving a life sentence for murder has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 1997 death of a student at UNC Pembroke. WITN-TV in Greenville reports Dane Locklear pleaded guilty on Tuesday in a ...

Tagged with: Guilty Plea

U.S. v. Fitzgerald (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-080-16, 16 pp.) (Traxler, J.) No. 14-4795, April 27, 2016; USDC at Baltimore, Md. (Russell, J.) 4th Cir. Holding: A defendant who was assured by the district court that he was not waiving his ...

Tagged with: Guilty Plea