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:
...Improper venue is waivable, while improper jurisdiction ordinarily is not.
There is no double jeopardy bar to a second trial when a charge is dismissed because an indictment or other criminal pleading is fatally defective.
When a statute sets forth disjunctive or alternative ways by which an offense may be committed, a warrant or indictment should charge them conjunctively, linking the alternatives by the word “and” instead of “or”.
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.
Even if he does not testify, the defendant may offer evidence of a “pertinent trait” of his character. G.S. 8C-404(a)(1).