NC Criminal Law
Magistrates are often referred to as the “first face” of the judicial system. They are critical to upholding the due process rights of North Carolina’s citizens. One of the best parts of my job is the opportunity to train magistrates in their civil law duties.
Magistrates must complete 12 hours of training each year, which includes annual instruction in seven required subjects. They include (1) setting conditions of pretrial release, (2) impaired driving laws, (3) issuing criminal...
The state must give the defendant, at the beginning of jury selection, a written list of the names of all witnesses whom the state reasonably expects to call during the trial.
A statement of charges, criminal summons, arrest warrant, citation or magistrate’s order may be amended at any time before or after final judgment as long as the amendment does not change the nature of the offense charged. G.S. 15A-922(f).
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).
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).
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.