NC Criminal Law

Phil Dixon on Friday, June 12th, 2026

Shea covered the recent escapes of two inmates from the Vance County Detention Center. On the lam since June 3, the pair were apprehended without incident on Tuesday this week in Asheville, North Carolina. According to this report, the men...

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The superior court has general jurisdiction over all felonies, as well as any misdemeanors which are lesser-included offenses of the felony, joined with the felony, or initiated by grand jury presentment. G.S. 7A-271(a).

An acquittal under the Double Jeopardy Clause includes a dismissal of a charge for insufficient evidence or an appellate court’s reversal of a conviction for insufficient evidence.

A judge may accept an Alford plea, in which a defendant pleads guilty but does not admit committing the offense and protests his or her innocence, if the record strongly supports the defendant’s guilt and the defendant intelligently concludes that it is in his or her interest to enter such a plea. The consent of the prosecutor is not required. 

Unlike “character,” which refers to a person’s general disposition or personality trait, a “habit” is a person’s regular response to a repeated, specific situation. Evidence of a person’s habit may be introduced to show that the person’s conduct was in conformity with that habit on a particular occasion. G.S. 8C-406.

The state must give the defendant, at the beginning of jury selection, a written list of the names of all witnesses whom the state reasonably expects to call during the trial.