NC Criminal Law
This post summarizes criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during August of 2026. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit are available here.
Where video footage contradicted material allegations of the...
Language in an indictment or other criminal pleading that is unnecessary (“surplusage”) does not prohibit the state from proving theories or facts of the charged crime that are different from those alleged in the indictment.
A prosecutor’s failure to sign an indictment does not invalidate the indictment. G.S. 15A-644(a)(4).
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.
A defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to counsel during interrogation by an officer or an informant about a pending charge after adversarial judicial proceedings for that charge have begun.
A prosecution in superior court must be by indictment, although a noncapital defendant may waive the right to an indictment and be tried on an information. See G.S. 15A-642; -943.