Case Summaries – N.C. Court of Appeals (April 7, 2020)

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals decided on April 7, 2020. (1) SBM order was supported by evidence; (2) Constitutional challenge to SBM not raised at trial was waived; (3) Ineffective assistance of counsel claims are not available for civil SBM proceedings State v. Blankenship, ___ N.C. App. ____ (April 7, 2020). In this Catawba County case, the defendant pled guilty to five counts of indecent liberties with a minor in lieu of other related charges, including possession of child pornography and other sexual assaults on children. The State argued for the imposition of satellite-based monitoring (“SBM”), pointing to the factual bases for the pleas and a STATIC-99R assessment finding the defendant to be “Average Risk.” The trial court ordered the defendant to enroll in SBM for a term of ten years following his release from prison. The defendant sought certiorari review, arguing the trial court erred by ordering SBM, that the State failed to demonstrate that SBM was reasonable under State v. Grady, 372 N.C. 509 (2019), and that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to raise a constitutional challenge to the SBM order. (1) In addition to the factual bases and the STATIC-99R, the trial court found that the defendant assaulted several children of both genders, that those children were between 6 and 14 years old, and that the defendant abused a position of trust to facilitate the assaults. These findings were supported by the evidence: “The unobjected to evidence, that [...]