The Court of Appeals found no error. The trial evidence supported an inference that Spencer knew the store and employee schedules, positioned himself for a private attack, and waited for the victims to leave. Evidence that he changed clothes, misled his girlfriend, and disposed of the weapon supported flight even though he later appeared near officers. The evidence also did not require a second-degree murder instruction.
The Court of Appeals found no error. Counsel did not concede guilt to the Pender County charges; the argument attempted to connect incriminating statements to different allegations and focus the jury on the State’s burden. The on-record discussion showed Benson knowingly accepted that strategy. The court also held that the substantial evidence of guilt defeated any showing of Strickland prejudice.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals vacated a consolidated judgment entering two counts of carrying a concealed firearm under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-269(a1) arising from discovery of two guns in a single traffic stop. Applying the rule of lenity under the Conley line of cases, the court held that § 14-269(a1)’s “any pistol or gun” language is ambiguous as to unit of prosecution, permitting only one conviction per incident. The court also vacated a twenty-four-month probationary term imposed without the specific written findings required to exceed the statutory eighteen-month cap.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed a DHC finding that attorney Mark Cummings lied to Bar investigators about compensating a paralegal, but vacated three other misconduct findings—on failure to file 1099s (no willfulness finding by the DHC), a courtroom recording device (no evidence of an actual misrepresentation), and a residency misrepresentation (prior out-of-court statement inadmissible under Rules 804(b)(5) and 803(24) because the declarant testified live at the hearing). The case was remanded for the DHC to reconsider appropriate discipline based only on the violations that survived review.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed a DWI/fleeing-to-elude conviction, holding that the trial court did not err under Rule 404(b) when it allowed the State to cross-examine the defendant about a prior urban police encounter that contradicted his trial testimony that he “would have pulled over” if approached in the city, and that the Rule 403 determination did not rise to an abuse of discretion despite the evidence’s limited probative value and high prejudice potential.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals vacated a review-hearing order ceasing reunification efforts, holding that N.C.G.S. § 7B-906.2(b) reserves that power exclusively for permanency planning hearings; the trial court’s failure to schedule a permanency planning hearing within the statutory thirty-day window was an error but not prejudicial on appeal, with mandamus the proper real-time remedy.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed a prescriptive easement over a rural pathway that had been used for ingress and egress since the 1950s, holding that the required twenty-year period need not immediately precede the dispute and that an easement already vested by adverse use cannot be destroyed by a later permission grant to a third party.