Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (August 15, 2023)

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on August 15, 2023. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present. Trial court properly denied defendant’s MAR without evidentiary hearing where witness who recanted identification did not testify under oath due to defendant’s Alford plea. State v. Brown, COA22-525, ___ N.C. App. ___ (August 15, 2023). In this Guilford County case, defendant petitioned for a writ of certiorari, arguing error in denial of his motion for appropriate relief (MAR) after a witness recanted her identification of defendant as the shooter in a homicide. The Court of Appeals majority denied the petition. In August of 2015, the victim was shot at a Greensboro apartment complex. Surveillance video showed defendant at the apartment complex, along with another man and a woman. Based upon statements from witnesses, the three were there to purchase Xanax from the girlfriend of the victim. Defendant and his male associate were in a gang that was rivals with the victim’s gang. After the shooting, both of defendant’s associates gave statements to the police identifying him as the shooter. In 2017, defendant entered an Alford plea to second-degree murder and an unrelated robbery charge prior to reaching trial. Five years later, the woman who visited the apartment complex with defendant recanted her statement identifying defendant as the shooter, instead identifying defendant’s fellow gang member as the shooter. Defendant subsequently [...]