This post summarizes criminal and related decisions published by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during September 2021. Decisions that may be interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous Fourth Circuit case summaries are available here.
Case Summaries
Court of Appeals Rules on Pretrial Self-Defense Immunity Hearings
Last month, the Court of Appeals decided State v. Austin, ___ N.C. App. ___, 2021-NCCOA-494 (Sept. 21, 2021), and a summary of the opinion is available here. Austin addressed several noteworthy self-defense issues, including the sufficiency of the state’s evidence to rebut the presumption of reasonable fear under the “castle doctrine” statutes added in 2011 and whether the trial court’s jury instructions on that issue were proper.
But first, the court had to decide whether the statutory language conferring “immunity from liability” meant that the defendant was entitled to have this issue resolved by the judge at a pretrial hearing. That’s a question I’ve been asked fairly often over the past few years, and my sense is that prior to Austin there were divergent practices on this point around the state.
This post takes a closer look at that portion of the court’s opinion, and explores what we now know and what we still don’t.
Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (Oct. 5, 2021)
This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on October 5, 2021. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.
Case Summaries — N.C. Supreme Court (September 24, 2021)
This post summarizes criminal decisions released by the Supreme Court of North Carolina on Friday, September 24, 2021.
Case Summaries – N.C. Court of Appeals (September 7, 2021)
This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on September 7, 2021. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.
Case Summaries – Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (July 2021)
This post summarizes published criminal and related decisions from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals released during July 2021 which may be of interest to state practitioners. Summaries are also emailed to subscribers of the SOG criminal law listserv. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit decisions are available on the SOG website, here.
Case Summaries – N.C. Supreme Court (August 13, 2021)
This post summarizes criminal decisions released by the Supreme Court of North Carolina on August 13, 2021.
Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (August 3, 2021)
This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on August 3, 2021. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.
Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (July 20, 2021)
This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on July 20, 2021. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.