NC Criminal Law

Alex Phipps on Thursday, March 28th, 2024

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the Supreme Court of North Carolina released on March 22, 2024. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present.

Supreme Court reversed holding in State v. Allen that review of MAR must be in the light most favorable to defendant; defendant could...

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The key question for double jeopardy analysis is whether each offense requires proof of an element that is not contained in the other — if not, they are the same offense and double jeopardy bars a successive prosecution.

A prosecutor’s failure to sign an indictment does not invalidate the indictment. G.S. 15A-644(a)(4).

If evidence is excluded by the trial court, the proponent of the evidence generally must provide an adequate offer of proof regarding the nature of the excluded evidence in order to argue on appeal that the evidence should have been allowed. See G.S. 8C-103(a)(2).

The state is not barred from recharging an offense if it was dismissed because the state’s motion to continue was denied. 

Two or more offenses may be joined for trial when the offenses are based on the same act or transaction or on a series of acts or transactions connected together or constituting parts of a single scheme or plan. See G.S. 15A-926(a).