The case involved the conviction of the defendant for robbery with a dangerous weapon after he was accused of using a knife to steal money from a convenience store cashier. The defendant appealed, claiming the trial court should have declared a mistrial due to a brief conversation between a prosecution witness and a juror, and that the jury should have been instructed on misdemeanor larceny as a lesser included offense based on his testimony that the incident was a staged theft planned with the cashier. The court affirmed the conviction, holding that the defendant had not properly preserved the mistrial issue for review and that the evidence did not support an instruction on larceny because it would instead suggest a different uncharged offense like embezzlement. The core reasoning was that plain error did not occur and the indictment and evidence did not align with the requested lesser offense instruction.
In State v. Taylor, defendant Donald Taylor was convicted of second-degree murder after his live-in girlfriend died from a gunshot wound to the neck; he claimed she had shot herself during an argument, but medical evidence showed the wound was not self-inflicted and occurred at a distance inconsistent with suicide. The trial court had disqualified his retained counsel due to a prior conflict of interest from representing the victim in a divorce action. On appeal, the court held that the disqualification did not violate the defendant's right to counsel of choice because the right is not absolute and must be balanced against the need for fair proceedings free of conflicts. The court also found the evidence sufficient to support the conviction, citing the physical impossibility of self-infliction and precedent involving similar facts, and upheld the sentence within the presumptive range without requiring mitigation findings. The judgment was affirmed.
The case involved a tenured history professor at North Carolina State University who filed a grievance alleging that the department chair unfairly excluded him from a discretionary salary enhancement recommendation and class scheduling decisions due to personal reasons. The university grievance committee held hearings and concluded that the professor was treated fairly, leading the chancellor to dismiss the grievance with no remedial action required. The trial court vacated the dismissal, ruling that the professor had a protected interest in the salary process and that age bias influenced the decisions. On appeal, the court reversed, holding that the professor lacked any statutory, regulatory, or contractual entitlement to the discretionary raise and thus had no due process rights at stake, while also noting that age discrimination was never properly presented in the grievance and could not be considered.
In Myers v. Mutton, the plaintiff appealed a trial court order imposing sanctions on his counsel and requiring full compliance with a discovery order in an ongoing medical malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Mutton. The plaintiff had objected generally to broad interrogatories and document requests but produced only partial responses even after a motion to compel was granted. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal, holding that the sanctions order was interlocutory because it did not finally resolve the case and the trial court had not certified it under Rule 54(b). The court further found that no substantial right would be lost absent immediate review, as discovery orders are generally not immediately appealable and the plaintiff had not identified any specific privilege or protected interest at stake.
In State v. Oliver, defendants Oliver and Moore were convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery in 1979 and initially received death sentences, which were vacated multiple times on appeal, leading to resentencing hearings. At the 2001 resentencing, the State did not seek the death penalty, so the trial court imposed life imprisonment sentences and ordered them to run consecutively for each defendant. The defendants appealed, arguing that the consecutive life sentences violated N.C.G.S. § 15A-1335 by being more severe than their original sentences. The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed the sentences, holding that replacing death sentences with consecutive life sentences does not increase the severity of punishment under the statute because any life sentence is less severe than even one death sentence, and the law permits adjusting concurrent versus consecutive structures without exceeding the original individual penalties.
In Hobbs v. Clean Control Corp., plaintiff Brenda Hobbs appealed the North Carolina Industrial Commission's denial of her workers' compensation claim for carpal tunnel syndrome, which she attributed to her job demonstrating cleaning products through repetitive motions like spraying and wiping. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Commission's decision, holding that Hobbs failed to prove her employment placed her at an increased risk of developing the condition compared to the general public, as required under N.C.G.S. § 97-53(13) for a compensable occupational disease. The court explained that the first two statutory elements are satisfied only if the job exposes the worker to greater risk than the public, and the Commission's findings on this point were supported by competent evidence, including medical testimony that changed based on differing job descriptions. The Commission, as the sole judge of witness credibility, was entitled to resolve conflicts in the evidence regarding the frequency of repetitive tasks, and its conclusions were therefore binding on appeal. The court also rejected the argument that any aggravation of a preexisting condition could qualify without the increased-risk showing.
