Case Summaries – N.C. Court of Appeals (June 1, 2021)

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on June 1, 2021. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present. (1) There was sufficient evidence that the home was the dwelling “of another” despite the co-conspirator being the only other inhabitant of the house. (2) The trial court properly considered the appropriate reliability factors before admitting the expert testimony. (3) The trial court did not commit plain error in its jury instructions because there was no variance between the allegations in the indictment and the State’s evidence at trial. (4) The State failed to present sufficient evidence to support the requested restitution amount. State v. Lance, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (June 1, 2021). The house leased by the defendant and her mother was destroyed by a fire. The police sergeant who was sent to investigate the fire observed that there was an unusually low number of personal belongings in the home and “not what you would expect in a home that was just lost to a fire.” Slip op. at ¶ 8. The sergeant learned that the defendant had obtained a renter’s insurance policy on her personal property about four months prior to the fire and had filed a claim for items lost in the fire. Several months later, the sergeant learned that the defendant’s mother had rented a nearby storage unit the day before the fire. Upon search [...]