Case Summaries – N.C. Court of Appeals (11/5/2019)

This post summarizes opinions issued by the Court of Appeals of North Carolina on November 5, 2019. The State gave a sufficient factual basis for the defendant’s guilty plea. State v. Alston, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (Nov. 5, 2019). The defendant pled guilty to felony serious injury by vehicle based on a single vehicle accident. The State presented a factual basis for the plea indicating that the defendant’s girlfriend’s infant child was injured and that an analysis of the defendant’s blood showed the presence of Alprazolam and Benzodiazepine. The court of appeals granted the defendant’s petition for writ of certiorari but rejected his argument that the factual basis for the plea was insufficient under G.S. 15A-1022(c). The court concluded that the information was sufficient despite not including information about the timing of the defendant’s impairment or the seriousness of the infant’s injuries, because those elements could reasonably be inferred from the other information the State provided. A dissenting judge would have denied the defendant’s petition for writ of certiorari and granted the State’s motion to dismiss the appeal.   The trial court applied the incorrect legal standard when sentencing a 17-year-old defendant to life without parole to the extent that it focused on the offense and the manner in which it was committed instead of the defendant’s potential for rehabilitation. State v. Ames, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (Nov. 5, 2019). The defendant, 17 years old at the time of his crime, was charged with first-degree [...]