This case arose from plaintiff Janet Moore's dental malpractice suit against Dr. Daniel Proper and related defendants, alleging that a routine tooth extraction fractured her jaw and that defendants failed to diagnose or treat the injury properly. The trial court granted summary judgment for defendants, dismissing the claim for failure to comply with Rule 9(j) of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure because no reasonable person would expect plaintiff's sole expert, Dr. Joseph Dunn, to qualify under Rule 702. The Court of Appeals reversed, and the North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed that reversal. The Court held that Dr. Dunn—a licensed general dentist who performed clinical work including extractions on a fill-in basis during the year before the alleged injury—satisfied Rule 702(b)(2)(a)'s requirement of engaging in active clinical practice of the same or similar specialty, so plaintiff met the Rule 9(j) certification standard.
In State v. Lawrence, the North Carolina Supreme Court reviewed a Court of Appeals decision that had found plain error in a trial court’s jury instructions on the elements of conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon, resulting in a new trial for defendant David Lawrence on that charge. The case arose from Lawrence’s participation in a planned armed robbery of a suspected drug dealer, for which he was convicted along with related offenses. The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeals had applied inconsistent and incorrect formulations of the plain error standard. It clarified that plain error review requires the defendant to show that the instructional error probably affected the jury’s verdict, adopting the federal standard first set out in State v. Odom, and reversed the grant of a new trial on the conspiracy charge.
In 1994, defendant pled guilty to second-degree murder for a 1993 offense and received a life sentence under North Carolina’s Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), which governed crimes committed before October 1, 1994. In 2011, the Superior Court granted his motion for appropriate relief and retroactively applied the later Structured Sentencing Act (SSA) to reduce the sentence to 157–198 months, making him eligible for immediate release. The North Carolina Supreme Court vacated that order and reinstated the original life sentence. The Court held that sentencing for this offense is controlled exclusively by the FSA, that the legislature alone prescribes criminal penalties, and that a court may not alter a lawful sentence by applying a later statute retroactively.
Sharon Thomas petitioned the North Carolina Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari to review an order issued by the North Carolina Court of Appeals in her lawsuit against the State of North Carolina, North Carolina Central University, and several university officials. The underlying case involved claims by Thomas against these defendants. On March 8, 2012, the Supreme Court denied the petition after considering it in conference. The order noted that Justice Martin was recused but provided no further explanation for the denial.
In State v. Starr, the defendant was convicted of four counts of assaulting firefighters with a firearm after a jury trial in which firefighters testified that he fired shots at them while they forced entry into his apartment in response to a 911 call. The key issue on appeal was whether the trial court violated N.C.G.S. § 15A-1233(a) by denying the jury’s request during deliberations to review Firefighter Spruill’s testimony without properly exercising its discretion. The North Carolina Supreme Court held that the trial court erred because it failed to exercise discretion as the statute requires and instead appeared to deny the request outright. However, the Court concluded that the error was not prejudicial, as Spruill’s testimony was corroborated by three other witnesses, was not confusing or contradictory, and was not the sole evidence linking the defendant to the crimes. The Court therefore modified and affirmed the Court of Appeals’ decision finding no reversible error.
The case involved a challenge to the constitutionality of an arrest for driving while impaired made by a campus police officer at Davidson College, a private institution with religious affiliations. The defendant argued that the North Carolina Campus Police Act, which authorized the officer's commission, violated the Establishment Clause by delegating government police power to a religious institution. The trial court denied the motion to suppress, but the Court of Appeals reversed, relying on prior precedent. The North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and upheld the conviction, applying the Lemon test to conclude that the Act has a secular purpose of providing neutral police protection to all higher education institutions, its primary effect neither advances nor inhibits religion, and it does not create excessive government entanglement with religious matters, as the arrest involved only secular enforcement of traffic laws.
