NC Criminal Law
This post summarizes criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during April of 2026. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit are available here.
Search of juvenile’s phone by school officials was reasonable; juvenile’s confession was voluntary
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A judge must accept a plea arrangement that involves only charges and no sentence recommendation, as long as the judge determines the plea is the product of an informed choice of the defendant and there is a factual basis for the plea. See G.S. 15A-1023(c).
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 Double Jeopardy Clause does not prohibit multiple punishments for offenses when one is include within the other under the Blockburger test if both are tried at the same time and if the legislature specifically authorizes cumulative punishment for both offenses.
G.S. 15A-134 provides that if a charged offense occurred partly in North Carolina and partly in another state, a person charged with that offense may be tried in North Carolina only if he or she has not already been placed in jeopardy for the same offense by the other state.
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.