North Carolina Criminal Law

I’ve had several questions about BB guns, pellet guns, and airsoft guns, and whether certain criminal offenses can be predicated on the use or possession of such weapons. I’ll try […]

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The court of appeals’ recent decision in State v. Pierce, __ N.C. App. __ (October 18, 2011), analyzed whether a defendant could properly be convicted of second degree murder for […]

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Suppose that Bob Boyfriend moves in with Gina Girlfriend. Bob lives in Gina’s apartment for several months. He isn’t on the lease and doesn’t pay rent, but he does buy […]

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Furious that her ex-boyfriend slept with her best friend, defendant puts up a post on Facebook falsely stating that boyfriend enjoys intimate relations with inbred dogs (actually, the phrase “enjoys […]

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We’ll start with a pop quiz: A police officer sees that the right brake light of a vehicle fails to illuminate when the driver applies brakes while driving down a […]

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G.S. 20-138.1(a)(2) prohibits a person from driving a vehicle upon a highway, street or public vehicular area after having consumed sufficient alcohol that the person has, at any relevant time […]

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I’ve had a huge number of calls about one particular aspect of S.L. 2011-268, the omnibus gun rights bill enacted during the recently completed legislative session. The provision in question […]

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I’ve been asked several times recently whether a particular set of facts should be charged as embezzlement, in violation of G.S. 14-90, or as larceny by employee, in violation of […]

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As I mentioned in a recent post, I really enjoy working with magistrates, in part because of the excellent questions they ask. Here’s one that came up recently: if a […]

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The court of appeals recently held that a defendant who was initially unarmed, then stole a weapon from a victim, was properly convicted of armed robbery because the defendant was […]

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