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This post summarizes published criminal decisions (and two other decisions of note) from the North Carolina Court of Appeals decided on October 15, 2019.

Three former Buncombe County officials and one former county employee who previously pleaded guilty to corruption charges were sentenced this week in federal court in Asheville.  As WLOS reports, former county manager Wanda Greene, former county manager Mandy Stone, former county assistant manager Jon Creighton, and former county employee Michael Greene each were sentenced to terms of imprisonment for their various corrupt activities.  Joseph Wiseman, a businessman who frequently contracted with the County and pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge related to bribery and kickback schemes with some of the officials, also was sentenced to prison.  Prosecutors said that more indictments in the case are forthcoming.  Keep reading for more news.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports that nearly 150 people attended a candlelight vigil this week in honor of Julius Randolph Sampson Jr., who was shot and killed Tuesday at Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem where he worked.  Sampson’s shooting death has attracted significant attention in Winston, as there is some indication that Sampson and the suspect in the shooting, Robert Anthony Granato, exchanged racial epithets during the incident, prompting questions from some about whether race was a motivating factor in the shooting.  Winston-Salem Police Chief Catrina Thompson said in a news conference on Wednesday that investigators have not uncovered evidence suggesting that the shooting was racially motivated.  The North Carolina NAACP has called for a full investigation into whether race was a factor in the shooting.  Keep reading for more news.

Last month the News Roundup noted that a federal judge had vacated Charles Ray Finch’s 1976 state conviction for murder.  That ruling followed the Fourth Circuit’s decision earlier this year that Finch was entitled to a hearing on the merits of an untimely habeas petition because he met the actual innocence standard required to overcome his untimeliness.  The Wilson Times reports that this week the Wilson County District Attorney’s Office formally dismissed the murder charge against Finch and will not retry him.  The article says that Finch now will petition Governor Cooper for a pardon, which, if granted, would entitle him to compensation for the 40 years he spent in prison.  Keep reading for more news.

For many years, our colleague Jessie Smith prepared summaries of appellate cases and sent them out via the School of Government’s criminal law listserv. Because she is transitioning her work to focus on criminal justice policy, she will not be summarizing cases anymore, but several of us will collaboratively carry on the service. We will continue to send the summaries out using the listserv, and we are also going to post them here on the blog.  Summaries of North Carolina Court of Appeals opinions from June 18, 2019 are provided below.

A horrifying attack on the Appalachian Trail near the North Carolina state line that left one person dead and another person seriously injured was a major national news story this week.  As the hiking website The Trek reports, Ronald Sanchez was stabbed to death early on Saturday morning as he and another hiker walked away from an area where they had broken camp in order to distance themselves from a man who was threatening them and acting unstable.  That man, James Jordan, now is in custody and has been charged with murder and other crimes.  Reports say that Jordan recently became known to law enforcement after several incidents where he menaced other hikers.  Keep reading for more news.

A stunning and tragic mass shooting in New Zealand late last week is one of the biggest international criminal law news stories in recent memory.  Last Friday, an Australian man motivated by racism killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch.  In a disturbing use of modern technology, the attack was streamed live to Facebook from a camera the gunman wore on a helmet.  News reports say that the man was active on right-wing white nationalist internet forums, and that he posted a lengthy manifesto to one such forum just before the attack.  In that document, he reportedly said that in addition to stoking racial discord, one of his goals was to further divide Americans on the controversial issue of gun laws.  Keep reading for more news.

As WRAL reports, the General Assembly passed and Governor Roy Cooper signed legislation that repeals the 2017 law designed to reduce the number of seats on the Court of Appeals from 15 to 12 over time.  When it was passed, the plan to reduce the number of seats on the court caused Judge Doug McCullough to unexpectedly retire from the bench so that his seat would not be eliminated.  The enactment of the new law keeping the number of seats on the court at 15 is intended to end litigation over the controversial measure.

Advocates of criminal justice reform have called for numerous policy changes in recent years, including raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction, eliminating or reducing reliance on money bail, decreasing monetary penalties for poor defendants, ending license revocations as a sanction for failing to appear for court or pay monies owed, and abandoning mandatory minimum sentencing. Many have also advocated for a re-examination of the role of the prosecutor, suggesting that prosecutors could better channel their power and discretion to lessen racial disparities, reduce recidivism, rehabilitate offenders, and cut rates of incarceration. Two reports published last December focus on this re-envisioned prosecutorial function. The first, 21 Principles for the 21^st Century Prosecutor, suggests practical steps that prosecutors can take to reduce incarceration and increase fairness. The second, Prosecutorial Attitudes, Perspectives, and Priorities: Insights from the Inside, explores what prosecutors in four prosecutorial districts think about definitions of success, office priorities, community engagement, and racial disparities.

As Charlottesville newspaper The Daily Progress reports, late last week a Virginia jury convicted James Alex Fields Jr. of first-degree murder and several other charges arising from his attack on people gathered to protest a white supremacist rally in August of last year.  On Tuesday, the jury recommended that Fields be sentenced to life in prison for the offenses.  In a violent bookend to an already disturbing series of events in Charlottesville, Fields drove a car into a crowd of protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others.  Fields also faces federal hate crime charges, though a trial date for those charges has not yet been set.  Keep reading for more news.