Latest posts in category Crimes and Elements on North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Under the felony murder rule, a death that occurs as the proximate result of the commission or attempted commission of another qualifying crime (robbery, kidnapping, felony involving use of a deadly weapon, and others) constitutes first-degree murder, even in the absence of premeditation and deliberation. See G.S. 14-17(a). Shea Denning wrote a great summary of the basic law on felony murder here, and she tackled the confusing merger doctrine here.

But one topic we haven’t yet covered on this blog is the issue of agency. Under North Carolina’s felony murder law, a defendant can only be held responsible for a death that was caused by himself or an accomplice to the crime, not by an adversary such as a police officer who shoots back. Recently, I was confronted with a couple interesting questions about this rule.

First, why is that the rule, and does it have to be?

Second, how does it apply to situations such as when an innocent bystander is killed by a stray bullet that could have come from either an accomplice or an adversary?

We previously reported on North Carolina state and county-level criminal charging data. In our earlier report (here) we provided data on charges, charged defendants and charged cases for felonies and misdemeanors, and broke misdemeanors down into non-traffic and traffic offenses. In this report, we present more detailed information about the nature of the felony and misdemeanor charges brought in North Carolina in 2019. For felony offenses, we provide data at the state and county level on, among other things, the number of non-violent and violent felony charges, and separate out drug charges. At the misdemeanor level, we parse the data into still more categories, including breakdowns for, among other things, DWI and related charges, non-DWI traffic charges, ordinance violations, and non-violent and violent misdemeanor charges. There is a lot to unpack in our new spreadsheet. In this report, we present some of the top line results. A spreadsheet with the data is available here.

Over the past couple weeks, North Carolina has joined the growing list of states in which armed demonstrators have gathered to express their opposition to virus-related restrictions on economic activity and social gatherings, or to more generally express their opposition to any restrictions on their Second Amendment rights. Dressed in patriotic or military-style gear, and armed with a variety of openly displayed handguns, rifles, or even an (inert) AT-4 anti-tank weapon, these groups have processed along city streets and sidewalks or gathered in public locations like a historic cemetery and a downtown restaurant.

Now, particularly in light of an incident over the weekend where two local attorneys walking with their children felt threatened by a demonstrator wielding a large pipe wrench, a lot of people are asking the same question: are these armed demonstrations legal?

The question seems simple. The answer is more complicated.

We’re pleased to announce that the 2019 Cumulative Supplement to North Carolina Crimes: A Guidebook on the Elements of Crime is now available for purchase. The book includes cases and legislation through December 31, 2019.

This post summarizes published criminal and related decisions from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in March, 2020. Decisions of interest to state practitioners will be posted on a monthly basis. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit criminal and related decisions can be found here.

The Governor ordered individuals in North Carolina to stay at home and non-essential business operations to cease beginning at 5 p.m. Monday, March 30, 2020. The order, Executive Order No. 121, remains in effect for thirty days from that date. Here are a few things to know about the order and its enforcement.

Shea blogged about the new crimes of death by distribution and aggravated death by distribution in G.S. 14-18.4, here. These crimes hit the books this past December, and 2020 will likely see the first prosecutions under the law. The Health In Justice Action Lab at Northeastern University School of Law has put together a toolkit to assist defense attorneys with these types of cases, available here. In full disclosure, the toolkit is part of a larger advocacy effort against these types of laws. Whatever your feelings about the policy reflected in the law, it seems likely to present new challenges for court actors applying it. This post highlights issues identified in the toolkit that may arise in NC prosecutions.

[Editor’s note: Because the information in this post cuts across multiple subject areas, the post will appear on several School of Government blogs.]

An Act to Protect Children from Sexual Abuse and to Strengthen and Modernize Sexual Assault Laws, S.L. 2019-245 (S199) enacts and amends various laws related to crimes;* amends some civil and criminal statutes of limitations; requires mandatory training for school personnel addressing child sex abuse and trafficking; amends the definition of “caretaker” as it relates to child abuse, neglect, or dependency; and creates a new universal mandatory reporting law for child victims of certain crimes.

This post discusses

• the amendment to the definition of caretaker and
• the new mandatory reporting law, which requires any adult to make a report to law enforcement when a juvenile is a victim of certain crimes.

The advent of cannabis legalization across the country has led to a proliferation of new types of cannabis products. There are skin patches, food and drinks (for humans and pets), vaporizer or “vape” cartridges (or “carts”), and different concentrate or extract products (“dabs”, “wax” or “shatter”, among other names). [Click that last link and scroll down to see a chart listing the different forms of extracts and their names.] The products can be made from lawful hemp, or from illegal marijuana alike. The illegal versions have found their way into North Carolina, and questions abound regarding how to handle these cases. The questions most commonly involve wax and cartridges, so this post takes a look at the issues surrounding those cases (leaving the skin patches and edibles for another day).

Two years ago I wrote a blog post about North Carolina’s unusual stance on rape and consent. In its 1979 decision in State v. Way, 297 N.C. 293 (1979), the North Carolina Supreme Court appeared to take the position that if a woman consents to sexual intercourse and in the middle of the act changes her mind, the defendant is not guilty of rape for continuing to engage in intercourse with her. In my lengthy blog, I suggested ways to distinguish or limit the antiquated approach in Way. This post need not be nearly as long. Last week, the General Assembly enacted Senate Bill 199, which revised the elements of rape and other sexual offenses to recognize the right to revoke consent, whether or not sexual intercourse or another sexual act has begun. If signed by the Governor (the Governor has signed the bill), the law will apply to offenses committed on or after December 1, 2019.