Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (Oct. 19, 2021)

This post summarizes criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals published on October 19, 2021. Summaries will also be posted to Smith's Case Compendium, here. Improper remarks to the venire regarding race and religious beliefs constituted structural error and required a new trial State v. Campbell, ___ N.C. App. ___, 2021-NCCOA-563 (Oct. 19, 2021). In this Guilford County case, the trial judge improperly expressed personal opinion and injected a discussion of race in remarks to the venire during jury selection. The defendant was charged with fleeing to elude and obtaining the status of habitual felon, along with other traffic offenses. During jury voir dire, a potential juror indicated that his religious beliefs as a non-denominational Baptist prevented him from judging the defendant. In response, the trial court stated: Okay. I’m going -- we’re going to excuse him for cause, but let me just say this, and especially to African Americans: Everyday we are in the newspaper stating we don’t get fairness in the judicial system. Every single day. But none of us -- most African Americans do not want to serve on a jury. And 90 percent of the time, it’s an African American defendant. So we walk off these juries and we leave open the opportunity for -- for juries to exist with no African American sitting on them, to give an African American defendant a fair trial. So we cannot keep complaining if we’re going to be part of the problem. Now I grew up Baptist, too. [...]