North Carolina Criminal Law

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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The crime of Maintaining a Store, Dwelling, Vehicle, Boat, or Other Place for Use, Storage, or Sale of Controlled Substances is a common one. In fact, AOC statistics show that […]

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G.S. 20-138.5(a) provides that “[a] person commits the offense of habitual impaired driving if he or she drives while impaired as defined in G.S. 20-138.1 and has been convicted of […]

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Crime against nature is usually an “add on” to other charged sexual assaults, such as forcible or statutory sexual offense and indecent liberties with a child. In this post, I’ll […]

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New legislation this year creates a handful of new homicide and assault crimes protecting unborn children. S.L. 2011-60. The term “unborn child” “means a member of the species homo sapiens, […]

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