Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (Dec. 3, 2024)

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on December 3, 2024. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present. Destruction of evidence after defendant’s conviction did not justify vacating defendant’s conviction because defendant could not show State acted in bad faith. State v. Brown, COA24-197, ___ N.C. App. ___ (Dec. 3, 2024). In this Durham County case, defendant made a post-conviction motion arguing the unlawful destruction of evidence from his case justified dismissing his conviction for robbery with a firearm. The Court of Appeals disagreed, affirming the trial court’s denial of his motion. After defendant’s conviction for robbery with a firearm in 2014, the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence investigated his case and requested evidence, including fingerprints from the crime scene, from the Durham Police Department and Durham County Clerk of Superior Court. The clerk’s office responded that the evidence had been destroyed, leading defendant to file a motion for hearing regarding destruction of evidence in violation of G.S. 15A-268. In March of 2022, the trial court determined that the clerk’s office destroyed evidence that should have been preserved during defendant’s incarceration, ordering a hearing on the matter. In June of 2022, the matter came for hearing before a different trial judge than the one who initially ordered the hearing, resulting in an order denying defendant’s motion. On appeal, defendant argued that the trial court erred by [...]