North Carolina Criminal Law

In August, the North Carolina Supreme Court weighed in on drug identification once again in State v. Osborne, ___ N.C. ___ (August 16, 2019). I wrote about the earlier Court […]

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Back in May, a divided Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling that the defendant was not entitled to a jury instruction on entrapment in an online solicitation of […]

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Author’s note:  The opinion discussed below was withdrawn and replaced by In re D.W.L.B, ___ N.C. App. ___ (Sept. 17, 2019). The new opinion concludes, for the same reasons provided […]

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Editor’s note: The opinion analyzed in this post was withdrawn shortly after publication and replaced with this opinion reaching the same outcome. Last week, in State v. Ellis, __ N.C. […]

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The common law right to use defensive force in North Carolina rests on three fundamental principles: necessity, proportionality, and fault. Ordinarily, when a person uses defensive force, the force must […]

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Effective immediately, there is a new exception to G.S. 90-113.22 (possession of drug paraphernalia) and G.S. 90-113.22A (possession of marijuana paraphernalia). Pursuant to S.L. 2019-159, it is “not unlawful” for […]

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Back in 2017, I wrote about murder charges premised on the unlawful distribution of drugs and what the State must prove to establish a defendant’s guilt. One element the State […]

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In State v. Harvey, ___ N.C. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (June 14, 2019), a five to one majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the unpublished decision of a […]

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Suppose the State is prosecuting a defendant for the sexual assault of a young child. Though the child has been identified by name in the arrest warrant and investigative reports […]

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Several years ago (some might say that’s an understatement) I wrote The Law of Self-Defense in North Carolina, in which I looked at over 200 years’ worth of North Carolina […]

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