North Carolina Criminal Law

Character evidence is one of the most challenging areas of evidence law to navigate, as Jessie Smith observes here. Jessie’s blog features a useful chart to apply Rules 404 and […]

Read post

A defendant who claims self-defense is generally permitted to offer evidence of the victim’s prior violent conduct if known to the defendant at the time defensive force was used. Such […]

Read post

The defendant presented competent evidence tending to show that he was acting in self-defense when he shot Raquan Neal, the Court of Appeals recently said in State v. Myers, No. […]

Read post

The UNC School of Government will be hosting a FREE one-hour webinar on self-defense law on May 15, 2024, at 10:30 a.m.  Registration is available here.  See below for a […]

Read post

Suppose the defendant is on trial for murder.  He argues he shot the victim in self-defense. The State elicits testimony from the victim’s father that the victim, who lived at […]

Read post

In State v. McLymore, 380 N.C. 185, 868 S.E.2d 67 (2022), our Supreme Court held that Section 14‑51.3 “supplants the common law on all aspects of the law of self-defense […]

Read post

Last month, the Court of Appeals decided State v. Austin, ___ N.C. App. ___, 2021-NCCOA-494 (Sept. 21, 2021), and a summary of the opinion is available here. Austin addressed several […]

Read post

The common law right to use defensive force in North Carolina rests on three fundamental principles: necessity, proportionality, and fault. Ordinarily, when a person uses defensive force, the force must […]

Read post

In State v. Harvey, ___ N.C. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (June 14, 2019), a five to one majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the unpublished decision of a […]

Read post

Several years ago (some might say that’s an understatement) I wrote The Law of Self-Defense in North Carolina, in which I looked at over 200 years’ worth of North Carolina […]

Read post