Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (May 21, 2024)

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on May 21, 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. Mistaken identification of paramedic as “emergency medical technician” did not represent fatal variance for purposes of G.S. 14-34.6. State v. Juran, COA23-881, ___ N.C. App. ___ (May 21, 2024). In this Onslow County case, defendant appealed her conviction for assault on an emergency personnel, arguing a fatal variance between the offense charged and the offense proved by the State’s evidence, and the same fatal variance between the indictment and the jury instructions and verdict sheet. The Court of Appeals found no error. In September of 2019, Defendant called 911 after experiencing chest pains. An ambulance arrived to take defendant to the hospital, but during the trip, defendant became agitated and squeezed a paramedic’s hand so hard that the driver of the ambulance pulled over and police were called. After defendant was released from the hospital, she was arrested. While the indictment identified the victim as an “emergency medical technician” and the jury instruction and verdict sheet likewise identified the victim as an EMT, the victim testified at trial that she was a paramedic. Taking up defendant’s arguments, the Court of Appeals noted that G.S. 14-34.6 makes it an offense to cause physical injury to “(1) An emergency medical technician or other emergency health care provider [or] (2) A medical [...]