NC Criminal Law

Daniel Spiegel on Friday, December 19th, 2025

Additional information came to light last week in the case against Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old man accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, during a key pretrial hearing on a motion to suppress. At issue was whether the search of Mangione’s backpack in an Altoona, PA, McDonald’s five days...

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A defendant may plead guilty or not guilty, or, with the consent of the prosecutor and judge, may plead “no contest.” See G.S. 15A-1011(a), (b).

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”.

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.

Language in an indictment or other criminal pleading that is unnecessary (“surplusage”) does not prohibit the state from proving theories or facts of the charged crime that are different from those alleged in the indictment.

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.