Case Summaries – N.C. Court of Appeals (March 1, 2022)

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on March 1, 2022. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present. (1) The trial court properly denied the defendant’s motion to suppress where officers had reasonable suspicion to search the vehicle involved in an accident to find the identification of the purported driver and developed probable cause to search the defendant’s person and backpack. (2) The trial court’s instructions to the jury adequately explained the knowledge element and requirement of the possession of methamphetamines charge. State v. Julius, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (Mar. 1, 2022). Officers responded to a single-car accident in May 2018. At the time of the crash, the defendant was the passenger, and her acquaintance, Kyle, was driving the vehicle with the defendant’s permission. Witnesses at the site told the officers the driver fled the scene and walked into nearby woods because he had outstanding warrants. The defendant told the officers that she knew the driver as “Kyle” but that she did not know his full or last name. One officer searched the SUV to look for Kyle’s driver’s license or ID. The officer found a bag in which he discovered a black box that contained two cell phones, a scale, and two large bags of a clear crystal-like substance, which was later determined to be of methamphetamine. The officers arrested the defendant then searched the bag [...]