North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

The Greensboro News & Record reports that Christopher Spencer of Pilot Mountain has become the first North Carolinian to face federal charges in connection with the deadly insurrection at the United States Capitol earlier this month.  The report says that Spencer has been charged with obstructing official proceedings, unlawful entry, and disorderly conduct.  Investigators apparently were aided by Facebook livestreams Spencer allegedly posted showing him encouraging others to kick open doors in the building and yelling obscenities at police officers.  His father Winston Spencer told the News & Record that his son’s participation in the incident “has been blown out of proportion.”  Keep reading for more news.

Recently questions came to me and my SOG criminal law colleagues about the crime of burglary in North Carolina that made it clear some readers would benefit from a discussion of statutory versus common law definitions of criminal offenses, as well as how to research legislative history. I will address these two issues using one scenario across a couple of blog posts. I hope these posts will help in interpreting and understanding statutes.

This post summarized published criminal and related decisions from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decided in December, 2020, that may be of interest to state practitioners.

Last week, Chief Justice Paul Newby entered an order extending and modifying some of the emergency directives previously imposed by former Chief Justice Cheri Beasley. Chief Justice Newby’s order (issued January 13, 2021 and effective January 14, 2021) allowed other emergency directives to expire. This post reviews the latest emergency directives as well as recent leadership changes affecting the courts.

The deadly attack on the United States Capitol by extremist supporters of President Donald Trump continues to dominate the national news this week as federal and state law enforcement agencies undertake the massive task of identifying and arresting perpetrators from across the country.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news.

As I write this post, news headlines continue to be dominated by coverage of the violence that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Dozens of people have been charged with crimes so far, and many others are being actively investigated for offenses including curfew violations, property crimes, assault, and possessing unlawful weapons or explosives. Perhaps the most striking allegation, and the one which will serve as the basis for a new article of impeachment against the president, is “insurrection.”

The criminal courts, or Congress in the case of impeachment, will decide whether the defendants are guilty of those offenses. But it made me wonder, particularly in light of new warnings about similar events occurring at state capitols in the days ahead, what does our law say about insurrection in North Carolina?

Imagine a case of domestic violence in which the perpetrator physically and violently assaults a victim. The perpetrator punches the victim with his fist, grabs the victim by the throat and strangles her, and grabs the nearest object and hits her over the head. The victim suffers a broken jaw, black eye, and a concussion and sustains bruising to the neck.

Assuming each of these acts occurred within a short and continuous time frame, could the perpetrator be charged with multiple counts of assault or only one?

Readers no doubt already are aware of the criminal law news of this sad week in America where President Donald Trump is being blamed for inciting extremist political supporters to engage in a violent siege on the United States Capitol.  One person, Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, was shot dead by police as she and other rioters attempted to breach a barricaded door in the Capitol.  The deadly force used to repel Babbitt was remarkable in its singularity – throngs of rioters beset the Capitol and met little resistance, with video footage showing some police officers moving barriers, standing aside, and even posing for selfies in the midst of what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell later called a “failed insurrection.”  Keep reading for more news.

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on December 31, 2020. The summaries were prepared by Shea Denning, Jamie Markham, Chris Tyner, Gabrielle Supak, and Jonathan Holbrook. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.

On January 2020, North Carolina’s Judicial Districts 21 (Forsyth County) and 2 (Washington, Beaufort, Martin, Tyrrell, and Hyde counties) implemented bail reform. In both jurisdictions, reforms were implemented after a […]