North Carolina Criminal Law

Senate Bill 105, which passed both chambers of the General Assembly overwhelmingly and appears certain to become law (either with the Governor’s signature or because of the passage of time […]

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In recent years there has been a spate of cases assessing the sufficiency of the evidence in murder prosecutions where the State’s case is built on circumstantial evidence. A recent […]

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The court of appeals’ recent decision in State v. Pierce, __ N.C. App. __ (October 18, 2011), analyzed whether a defendant could properly be convicted of second degree murder for […]

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I wrote here about the court of appeals’ recent ruling in State v. Davis that expert testimony calculating the defendant’s alcohol concentration based on odor alone was improperly admitted at […]

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Our murder statute, G.S. 14-17, defines first-degree murder, then proceeds as follows: “All other kinds of murder, including that which shall be proximately caused by the unlawful distribution of opium […]

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I’ve had several questions recently about the merger doctrine as it applies to felony murder. It’s a complicated area, made even more confusing because there are two different doctrines that […]

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Because of a case currently pending in Gaston County — story here — several people have asked me about the law as it concerns scaring a person to death.  Let […]

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