Each year the School of Government publishes new and revised pattern jury instructions for civil, criminal, and motor vehicle negligence cases. Those instructions are created and compiled by the North Carolina Conference of Superior Court Judges Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions. The 2024 updates are available for free download here. Among this year’s changes are new instructions for crimes recently defined by the state legislature, including patient brokering, street takeovers, new death by distribution offenses, the new misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, and elevated versions of the offense of breaking or entering a motor vehicle. Several existing criminal instructions also have been amended, including the instruction for substituting alternate jurors after deliberations begin (N.C.P.I. – Crim. 100.40). That instruction now includes a note well advising of the ruling in State v. Chambers, 292 N.C. App. 459 (2024), and the stay entered by the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Crimes and Elements
Indictment Technicalities: Gone Today and Here Tomorrow
Singleton was supposed to make things simpler. As previously reported, in that case our Supreme Court attempted to eliminate some “obsolete technicalities” of the common law by abrogating the jurisdictional indictment rule, whereby a defective pleading deprives the trial court of jurisdiction. My colleague Danny Spiegel called it a sea change. The Court of Appeals decided two cases in September that illustrate continuing complexity in this area. In State v. Pierce, COA23-348 (N.C. Ct. App. Sept. 3, 2024), the court held the trial court did not lack jurisdiction to accept a pro se defendant’s waiver of indictment, despite a statutory prohibition on such uncounseled waiver. And in State v. Wilkins, COA23-839 (N.C. Ct. App. Sept. 17, 2024), the court found the trial court lacked jurisdiction due to a fatally defective indictment. This post considers those two cases.
The Fourth Circuit Weighs in on THC-O and “Synthetic” THC
In September, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a significant decision affecting the hemp industry on the federal level. There has been an open question for some time regarding the legality of certain cannabinoids that do not naturally occur in the cannabis plant but can be created from hemp products. THC-O (tetrahydrocannabinol acetate) is an example of such a compound. State and federal criminal law both ban “synthetic THC.” What exactly counts as “synthetic” THC? I wrote a bit about this ambiguity in the law before, but Anderson v. Diamondback Investment Group, LLC, ___ F.4th ___; 2024 WL 4031401 (4th Cir. 2024), provides some of the first guidance on the issue in the age of legal hemp. Read on for the details.
What Is Patient Brokering?
The state legislature recently passed a law making patient brokering a felony. If you haven’t heard of patient brokering, well, you’re in the same boat I was in until recently. Read on to learn more.
Outsourcing Reasonableness: Redefining Defensive Force in State v. Phillips.
Coke claimed the common law was the perfection of reason. Our Supreme Court began its recent opinion in State v. Phillips, No. 281A23 (N.C. Aug. 23, 2024), by citing Coke, albeit for a different proposition (i.e., a person’s home is his castle). Construing G.S. 14-51.2, our Supreme Court held that the legislature has abrogated the common law rule that prohibited excessive force in defense of the home. The trial court erred therefore in instructing the jury that the defendant homeowner did not have the right to use excessive force. This post examines the recent opinion in Phillips.
New Enhancements for Breaking or Entering Motor Vehicles and Other Conveyances
Effective December 1, 2023, Session Law 2023-151 amended G.S. 14-56 (Breaking or entering into or breaking out of railroad cars, motor vehicles, trailers, aircrafts, boats, or other watercraft) to provide for sentencing enhancements based on the aggregated value of any property taken. In amending the statute, the General Assembly added elements – taking and value – to these enhanced crimes. The General Assembly also amended G.S. 14-86.1 (Seizure and forfeiture of conveyances used in committing larceny and similar crimes) to include violating G.S. 14-56 as a basis for vehicle seizure and forfeiture. This post will review the statutory amendments and new elements, and consider whether a person may also be convicted of and punished for larceny in connection with a violation of G.S. 14-56.
Character is Destiny: Improper Argument in State v. Anderson
Evidence of prior bad acts is admissible unless the only reason for introducing the evidence is to show the defendant’s propensity for committing the crime. In a trial involving a defendant’s sexual assault of children, the prosecutor told the jury, “[t]he best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.” Is that an inaccurate statement of law? The Court of Appeals recently held that it was. This post considers the rule – that incorrect statements of law in closing argument are improper – and its application in this case, State v. Anderson, No. COA23-821 (N.C. Ct. App. Aug 6, 2024).
Grants Pass: Local Government Authority and the Constitutionality of Laws Against Camping or Sleeping in Public
According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, well over half a million people are unhoused on any given night in America. Given the magnitude of the crisis, local governments face immense challenges in addressing the underlying causes of homelessness while managing public health and safety concerns. Some local governments, including many in North Carolina, have adopted anti-camping and/or anti-sleeping ordinances as part of their response.
The Supreme Court of the United States recently considered whether the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause barred an Oregon city’s adoption of ordinances restricting camping on public property in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, 603 U. S. ____ (2024). One of us previewed the case and commented on the oral arguments a few months ago. On June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court upheld the city’s public camping laws, concluding that their enforcement does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment. This blog post analyzes the Court’s decision and offers guidance to local governments regarding anti-sleeping and anti-camping ordinances.
[Editor’s note: This post is cross posted on Coates’ Canons, the School of Government’s local government law blog.]
Legislative Amendments to Larceny Laws
Sticky-fingered Sam goes to the local shoe store to purchase a new pair of shoes. The last pair of shoes in her size are priced at $150. Deciding that these are too expensive, Sam removes a sticker from a box of shoes on the clearance shelf priced at $30 and places the sticker on the box of the shoes she wants. Sam takes the $150 shoes to the register with the $30 sticker on them, pays the lower price, and leaves. Has Sam committed a larceny? Has Sam committed the crime of larceny from a merchant under G.S. 14-72.11?
Sam’s acts do constitute larceny and are similar to the acts of the defendant in State vs. Hill, 291 N.C. App. 633 (2023). However, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that a defendant’s use of a price label sticker from another product did not represent larceny by product code (a form of larceny from a merchant) under G.S. 14-72.11(3). The court acknowledged that there is another larceny statute that would have been more appropriate for this circumstance. In response to Hill, the North Carolina General Assembly has amended the laws related to larceny and retail theft to bring more clarity about its scope. This post discusses the holding in State v. Hill and examines the newly amended laws applicable to these specific types of larceny.
Kidnapping by Pursuit: Evading Criminal Liability in State v. Andrews.
In a case decided earlier this month, the Court of Appeals overturned the defendant’s conviction for kidnapping when the evidence showed only an unsuccessful carjacking. See State v. Andrews, No. COA23-675 (N.C. Ct. App. July 2, 2024). Given the particular facts of the case – the defendant threatened the victim with a firearm, the victim fled in his car, and the defendant gave chase in his van – the Court of Appeals might have concluded that a car chase does not constitute the sort of confinement, restraint, or removal that G.S. 14-39 (kidnapping) was intended to address. Instead, it held that the defendant’s high-speed pursuit of the victim was a restraint that was not sufficiently distinct from that inherent in the attempted armed robbery. Citing double jeopardy concerns, the Court of Appeals reversed the kidnapping conviction. This post examines the opinion in Andrews.