North Carolina Criminal Law

Indictment issues are the bane of the prosecutor’s existence. The rules about how an offense must be alleged in the indictment are highly technical. And because the rules are neither […]

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Today, the court of appeals reversed a defendant’s drug convictions because the indictments identified the controlled substances in question using terms that are widely used to describe the drugs, but […]

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A recent conversation reminded me about a question I’ve received several times over the years: On a habitual felon indictment, what should be listed as the offense date? The two […]

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Many veteran prosecutors know the rule, “plead in the conjunctive.” In other words, in an indictment or other charging document, join different theories of the crime with the word “and” […]

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An indictment defect is a boon for the defense and a disaster for the prosecution. Simply put an indictment is defective when it fails to allege an essential element of […]

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In the game show Name that Tune, contestants had to identify song titles correctly in order to win cash prizes. In criminal pleadings in North Carolina, the state must identify […]

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