Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (July 5, 2023)

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on July 5, 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 provided curative instruction to disregard improperly admitted lay opinion testimony; warrantless blood draw was justified by exigent circumstances where defendant was unconscious and taken to a hospital after accident. State v. Burris, COA22-408, ___ N.C. App. ___ (July 5, 2023). In this Buncombe County case, defendant appealed his convictions for driving while impaired and reckless driving, arguing (1) there was insufficient evidence that he was driving the vehicle, and (2) error in denying his motion to suppress the results of a warrantless blood draw. The Court of Appeals majority found no error. In November of 2014, a trooper responded to a single vehicle accident and found a heavily damaged pickup truck against a steel fence off the side of the road. Defendant was inside the vehicle, unconscious and seriously injured. The trooper noticed the smell of alcohol and open beer cans in the vehicle. Defendant was the owner of the wrecked vehicle and there were no other people at the scene of the accident. At the hospital, the trooper ordered a warrantless blood draw. The results of this blood draw were that defendant was intoxicated, and these results were admitted at trial. The jury subsequently convicted defendant of drunk driving solely on the grounds that his blood [...]