The Common Law is Dead; Long Live the Common Law!

In State v. McLymore, 380 N.C. 185, 868 S.E.2d 67 (2022), our Supreme Court held that Section 14‑51.3 “supplants the common law on all aspects of the law of self-defense addressed by its provisions,” and “the only right to perfect self-defense available in North Carolina [is] the right provided by statute.”  Id. at 191, 868 S.E.2d at 72-73.  At the same time, it interpreted the felony disqualifier provision of Section 14-51.4 – consistently with “common law principles” – to require a causal nexus between the felony and the use of force.  Id. at 197, 868 S.E.2d at 77.  The common law is apparently not so easily dispensed with.  This post – my first contribution to this forum – addresses the persistence of the common law in the area of self-defense.  My colleague Phil Dixon provided color commentary on McLymore here.  My colleague John Rubin discussed the felony disqualifier provision (and anticipated the holding in McLymore) here. Our Reception Statute: G.S. Section 4-1.  The American Revolution was not a rejection of English law.  The law familiar to the colonists, and which they largely retained, was the English common law.  This body of law found its most accessible form in Blackstone’s Commentaries, published between 1765 and 1770.  Until the 1930s, Blackstone was required reading for admission to the North Carolina bar.  See John V. Orth, Blackstone’s Ghost: Legal Education in North Carolina, chapter in Re-Interpreting Blackstone’s Commentaries: A Seminal Text in National and International Context (Wilfred Prest ed.) (Hart Publishing Ltd. 2014). By [...]