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

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on September 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. Court applied four-factor analysis to determine two of defendant’s convictions for indecent liberties were actually one continuous transaction. State v. Calderon, COA22-822, ___ N.C. App. ___ (Sept. 5, 2023). In this Wake County case, defendant appealed his three indecent liberties with a child convictions, arguing his actions represented only one continuous act rather than three separate incidents. The Court of Appeals majority held that the evidence only supported two convictions, not three, and remanded the case so that the trial court could arrest judgment on one of the convictions and resentence defendant accordingly. In 2019, defendant met the thirteen-year-old victim after a church service at the home where he rented a room in Raleigh. After a second conversation with the victim at a pool party, defendant became friends with her on social media platforms. On July 5, 2019, defendant showed up at the house where the victim lived while her grandmother was away. Testimony about the events after this varied, as the victim testified that defendant forcibly pulled her into his van and made sexual contact with her, while neighbors observed the two inside defendant’s van kissing without any apparent coercion. Defendant testified that the victim messaged him asking him to come over and that she came willingly into [...]