NC Criminal Law
In recent months, I have received several questions about what North Carolina’s cyberstalking statute covers and whether it may infringe on First Amendment free speech rights. This post addresses several potential legal issues under the statute.
Background. The statute is G.S. 14-196.3. Subsection (b) makes it a crime to:
...Each separate offense charged against a defendant must be pled in a separate pleading, or in a separate count within a single pleading. See G.S. 15A-924(a)(2).
An initial appearance may be held before a magistrate anywhere within the state. See G.S. 7A-273(7).
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 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.
The core purpose of the Rules of Evidence is to achieve fairness, efficiency, and justice by ensuring that only relevant and reliable evidence is considered by the finder of fact. G.S. 8C-102(a).