NC Criminal Law
This post summarizes criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during August of 2026. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit are available here.
Where video footage contradicted material allegations of the...
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”.
If a defendant pleads guilty to an H or I felony in district court, is placed on probation, and is subsequently charged with violating that probation, the superior court has jurisdiction to hear the violation. But with the consent of the state and the defendant, the district court may hear the violation. G.S. 7A-271(e).
If the defendant appeals from a conviction arising out of a plea agreement in district court, the superior court has jurisdiction over misdemeanors that were dismissed, reduced, or modified pursuant to the agreement. See G.S. 15A-1431(b); 7A-271(b).
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).
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.