NC Criminal Law
This post summarizes criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during May of 2026. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit are available here.
District court correctly found that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury...
A statement of charges, criminal summons, arrest warrant, citation or magistrate’s order may be amended at any time before or after final judgment as long as the amendment does not change the nature of the offense charged. G.S. 15A-922(f).
An indigent defendant who has been formally charged has a right to counsel at a pretrial lineup or other identification procedure at which defendant’s presence is required.
A defendant who is in custody has a Fifth Amendment right to counsel during an interrogation.
The court may take judicial notice of adjudicative facts that are not subject to any reasonable dispute if the facts are common knowledge in the jurisdiction or can be easily determined by reference to reliable sources.
Evidence of the victim’s character may be introduced in two circumstances: First, the defendant may introduce evidence of a “pertinent trait” of the victim’s character. G.S. 8C-404(a)(2). The most common example is evidence of the victim’s violent character, offered when the defendant is claiming self-defense. Second, in homicide cases, the state may offer evidence of the victim’s character trait for “peacefulness” to rebut a claim by the defense that the victim was the first aggressor.