Recent Blog Posts Page 49 on North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Jennifer Crumbley was convicted on Tuesday of four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one count for each student her 15-year-old son Ethan shot and killed at his Michigan High School in November 2021. The pistol Ethan used to kill his classmates was a gift from his parents. The New York Times described the trial, in which the State focused on warning signs they said Ms. Crumbley ignored, as a “significant test case” for prosecutors. While parents whose children have carried out gun violence have pled guilty to less serious charges in other state cases, Ms. Crumbley faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for the four counts of which she was convicted.

Ms. Crumbley’s husband and Ethan’s father, James Crumbley, will be tried in March. Ethan Crumbley previously pled guilty to multiple charges, including first degree murder, and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He did not testify at his mother’s trial.

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on February 6, 2024. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present.

On January 29, 2024, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed an Executive Order joining the national Reentry 2030 initiative. What’s the Reentry 2030 initiative? According to the Reentry 2030 website, […]

I am happy to announce that a new Administration of Justice Bulletin, The Pretrial Integrity Act, is now available. It answers several questions raised by the new pretrial release laws enacted by S.L. 2023-75. The bulletin explores the newly enacted changes, how they are affected by different charging documents, the impact of the new provisions on existing pretrial release laws, and potential challenges in implementation.

This week Governor Cooper signed an executive order to improve reentry services throughout the state. The order aims to enhance coordination between agencies and increase access to post-release employment opportunities and programs such as work release. With the announcement of the order, North Carolina became the third state (joining Alabama and Missouri) to sign on to Reentry 2030, a national initiative with ambitious goals. The goals include increasing the number of high school and post-secondary credentials earned by incarcerated people by 75%, increasing the number of post-secondary degrees that are available in prisons by 25%, reducing the number of incarcerated people being released homeless by 50%, and allowing every person who is eligible to apply for Medicaid before release. The executive order also calls for more local reentry councils.

Read on for more criminal law news.

Once upon a time, search warrants were simple. An officer would obtain a warrant to search a suspect’s home or some other physical location connected to a crime. The officer would go to the location, announce his or her presence, and conduct the search. But these days, officers frequently want to obtain records and other evidence from businesses not suspected of any wrongdoing. For example, they want bank records that can be used to trace the suspect’s ill-gotten gains. They want cell site location information that can be used to tie the suspect to the crime scene. And they want email records that show communication between the suspect and his or her coconspirators. Officers do not typically kick down these businesses’ doors and start rummaging around, partly because that would be needlessly disruptive and partly because officers might have a hard time locating evidence stored in the cloud or on a server located who-knows-where. Instead, officers obtain a search warrant, then send a copy of the warrant to the company in question and ask the company to search its own records and provide responsive materials. Is that OK?

The North Carolina Department of Commerce has created a new online tool called The NC Reentry Outcome Reporting System. The tool shows employment outcomes for people leaving the state prison […]

Yesterday, Alabama became the first state in the nation to execute a prisoner using nitrogen hypoxia. The AP reports here that “Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m. . . . after breathing pure nitrogen gas through a face mask to cause oxygen deprivation.” Smith was sentenced to death three decades ago for his role in a contract killing. Alabama attempted to execute him by lethal injection in 2022, but the attempt failed when authorities were unable to attach an IV to his veins. The Supreme Court declined to block the nitrogen gas execution earlier this week, over a dissent from three liberal Justices. The linked story contains some details of the execution. Keep reading for more news.

In impaired driving cases, the results of a breath test of the defendant are admissible at trial when the testing is performed in accordance with statutory requirements and applicable administrative regulations. G.S. 20-139.1(b). When the testing is not carried out as required, however, the results are inadmissible. See State v. Davis, 208 N.C. App. 26, 34 (2010).

Among the testing requirements is that the law enforcement officer carrying out the test observe the defendant to determine that he or she “has not ingested alcohol or other fluids, regurgitated, vomited, eaten, or smoked in the 15 minutes immediately prior to the collection of a breath specimen.” See 10A NCAC 41B .0101(6) (defining “observation period” and specifying further that “[d]ental devices or oral jewelry need not be removed”); 10A NCAC 41B .0322 (requiring that observation periods be met before breath test is conducted). The purpose of the observation period is to ensure that the test results reflect the concentration of alcohol in a sample of the person’s deep lung breath rather than an alcohol concentration based on alcohol in the person’s mouth.

Last week, the Court of Appeals in State v. Forney, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ____ (January 16, 2024), considered whether tests results from a defendant who had chewing gum in his mouth during the observation period were admissible under G.S. 20-139.1(b).

My colleague, Phil Dixon, blogged about the Court of Appeals’ decision in State v. Joyner, 284 N.C. App. 681 (2022), here. In Joyner, the court ruled that the State did not run afoul of the Confrontation Clause when it introduced the victim’s testimony from a civil 50C hearing at the defendant’s criminal trial. Last year, the court decided State v. Smith, 287 N.C. App. 614 (2023) (unpublished), a case that provides an interesting counterpoint to Joyner. In Smith, the State recorded the victim’s testimony from the probable cause hearing in district court and moved to admit the testimony at trial in superior court after the victim became unavailable. The trial court admitted the testimony, but the Court of Appeals reversed. It ruled that the opportunity to cross-examine the victim at the probable cause hearing was not “adequate” to comport with constitutional requirements, vacated the convictions for first-degree kidnapping and human trafficking, and ordered a new trial.

Although the opinion is unpublished, the State did not seek further review, and the Smith decision has important implications for practitioners. This post examines those issues and offers advice for defenders when the State attempts to introduce recorded testimony from a probable cause hearing at trial.