Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (Dec. 15, 2020)

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on December 15, 2020. Special thanks to Gabby Supak and Jamie Markham for assisting with this batch. (1) Despite the State’s repeated use of “moped” to describe the defendant’s vehicle, sufficient evidence existed to establish that the defendant’s vehicle met the statutory definition of “motor vehicle”; (2) New trial required where trial court plainly erred in failing to instruct the jury on the definition of “motor vehicle” State v. Boykin, ___ N.C. App. ___ (Dec. 15, 2020). In this Sampson County case, the defendant was convicted of felony fleeing to elude, habitual felon, and habitual impaired driving. The focus of the defendant’s arguments on appeal were on the definition of “motor vehicle” as used in G.S. 20-141.5(a) and G.S. 20-4.01(23) at the time of the offenses in 2015. This definition excluded “mopeds” from the definition of “motor vehicles.” Within that statutory framework, a “moped” was defined as “[a] vehicle that has two or three wheels, no external shifting device, and a motor that does not exceed 50 cubic centimeters piston displacement and cannot propel the vehicle at a speed greater than 30 miles per hour on a level surface.” G.S. 105-164.3(22) (2015). (1) The defendant argued that the State did not prove that the defendant was operating a motor vehicle, an element of felony speeding to elude arrest, based on the State’s repeated references to defendant’s vehicle as a “moped” at trial. The Court of Appeals disagreed, [...]