By now, most people in the North Carolina indigent defense community know that Mary Pollard, the executive director of the North Carolina Office of Indigent Defense Services (IDS), has decided to retire at the end of August this year. IDS is therefore looking for a new executive director. You can see the job posting here. I want to use this post to recount the impact that IDS and its...
NC Criminal Law
on Monday, June 8th, 2026
#NCPROTIP
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The core purpose of the Rules of Evidence is to achieve fairness, efficiency, and justice by ensuring that only relevant and reliable evidence is considered by the finder of fact. G.S. 8C-102(a).
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.
If a case is transferred to another district for prosecution, the prosecutor of the originating district must continue to prosecute the case, unless the prosecutor of the receiving district consents to the prosecution. See G.S. 15A-133(d).
Improper venue is waivable, while improper jurisdiction ordinarily is not.
Evidence of the victim’s character may be introduced in two circumstances: First, the defendant may introduce evidence of a “pertinent trait” of the victim’s character. G.S. 8C-404(a)(2). The most common example is evidence of the victim’s violent character, offered when the defendant is claiming self-defense. Second, in homicide cases, the state may offer evidence of the victim’s character trait for “peacefulness” to rebut a claim by the defense that the victim was the first aggressor.
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