Judge, Court of Appeals of North Carolina · Born 1950
State v. Carver
Court of Appeals of North Carolina · 2012-06-05 · cited 11×
In State v. Carver, the defendant was tried and convicted of first-degree murder after a jury heard circumstantial evidence that he and his cousin were fishing near the site where a woman was found strangled beside her car, with DNA profiles matching both men recovered from the vehicle. The Court of Appeals of North Carolina affirmed the trial court's denial of Carver's motion to dismiss for insufficient evidence. The majority held that Carver's repeated false denials of any contact with the victim or her car, when combined with the DNA evidence placing him at the scene, permitted a reasonable inference that he committed the crime, following the logic of precedents such as State v. Miller. The court noted that motive is not required and that the evidence was adequate to submit the case to the jury.
criminal law
Lampkin Ex Rel. Lapping v. Housing Management Resources, Inc.
Court of Appeals of North Carolina · 2012-05-15 · cited 5×
In this case, the minor plaintiff Jada Lampkin, through her guardian, and her father sued the owners, operators, and managers of her apartment complex for negligence after she was seriously injured in 2010. She passed through a broken chain-link fence on the complex’s common-area playground, walked onto a frozen pond on adjacent third-party property, fell through the ice, and suffered permanent brain damage; the complaint alleged that the defendants had a duty to maintain a suitable barrier to keep children from accessing the pond after receiving prior notice of the risk. The trial court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), and the North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed. The court held that a landowner’s duty of reasonable care to maintain its own premises does not extend to protecting against dangerous conditions on neighboring property, rejecting analogies to the attractive-nuisance doctrine and the voluntary-undertaking doctrine because the defendants neither created the pond nor undertook to repair the fence or use it as a security barrier. The court further noted that imposing such a duty would improperly shift responsibility for the hazard from the party who controls it to an adjacent landowner who has no control over the neighboring land.
propertytorts & liability
In Re Hamilton
Court of Appeals of North Carolina · 2012-05-01 · cited 24×
In 2001, Aaron Evans Hamilton pled guilty to taking indecent liberties with a child, received a suspended sentence with probation that included sex offender registration, and was discharged from probation in 2004 after completing all terms without further offenses. He petitioned the trial court in 2011 under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-208.12A to end his registration obligation, but the court denied relief based solely on a pre-printed finding that termination would not comply with the federal Jacob Wetterling Act and related standards. The North Carolina Court of Appeals vacated the order and remanded the case, holding that the trial court's lone finding was unsupported by competent evidence—since Hamilton had met all statutory criteria for relief—and that the trial court had failed to make required findings on the issues raised in the petition before exercising its discretion on whether to grant termination.
criminal lawprocedure
State v. Jones
Court of Appeals of North Carolina · 2012-05-01 · cited 5×
In State v. Jones, the defendant was convicted of second-degree murder after a 2011 retrial for the 2006 killing of Sarah Slaton, following a series of proceedings in which he alternated between representation by appointed counsel and self-representation with standby counsel. On appeal, he contended that the trial court violated his rights by failing to direct counsel to follow his preferred defense strategy of alleging misconduct and conspiracy, and by allowing him to waive counsel without a proper inquiry. The North Carolina Court of Appeals reviewed the claims de novo and found no error, affirming the conviction. The court reasoned that counsel was not required to pursue the defendant’s meritless theories, that conflicts leading to counsel changes did not implicate the rule from State v. Ali, and that the trial judge conducted a thorough colloquy under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1242—confirming the defendant’s competence, understanding of the charges and penalties, and the consequences of proceeding pro se—before accepting his written waiver.
criminal lawprocedure
State v. Justice
Court of Appeals of North Carolina · 2012-04-03 · cited 10×
In State v. Justice, defendant Tonya Justice was convicted of larceny from a merchant under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-72.11(2) after evidence showed she removed anti-theft sensors from clothing at a Belk store and admitted intending to steal them due to a drug problem; she was also found to be a habitual felon. The North Carolina Court of Appeals arrested judgment on the larceny conviction, holding that the indictment was fatally defective and deprived the trial court of subject matter jurisdiction. The court reasoned that the indictment's description of the property as merely "merchandise" was too vague to satisfy larceny pleading requirements and that its language alleging an "effort to steal" charged only an attempt rather than a completed taking. Because the underlying felony conviction could not stand, the court also reversed the habitual felon judgment and remanded for dismissal of that indictment.
criminal lawprocedure
Dixon v. Gist
Court of Appeals of North Carolina · 2012-04-03 · cited 3×
Elizabeth Dixon sued Randall and Laura Gist in 2011, alleging they tricked her into a joint bank account and conveyed her 16 acres of land through fraud, undue influence, and breach of trust, asserting claims including constructive fraud, conversion, and civil conspiracy after voluntarily dismissing a nearly identical 2010 action. The trial court granted the Gists judgment on the pleadings and dismissed all claims, but the Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. It upheld dismissal of the real-property claims as barred by the three-year statute of limitations for actual fraud, because Dixon was present at a July 2007 planning-board meeting where the Gists’ ownership of the land was openly discussed, so she should have discovered the alleged fraud with due diligence well before filing. The court reversed dismissal of the bank-account claims, holding they alleged constructive fraud arising from a fiduciary relationship and were therefore governed by a ten-year statute of limitations that had not expired.
propertyproceduretorts & liability