Earlier this month, the court of appeals decided State v. Joe, __ N.C. App. __ (2011) (Stephens, J.). A Winston-Salem officer was patrolling a drug-infested apartment complex at 2:00 in the afternoon. The defendant was standing by the corner of a building in the complex, and when he saw the officer approach in his vehicle, his eyes “got big” and he walked behind the building. The officer followed, and the defendant ran. The officer chased him for several blocks, caught him, and arrested him. The officer found a bag of crack cocaine nearby. The defendant was charged with resisting, delaying, and obstructing the officer; with PWISD cocaine; and with being a habitual felon. He moved to suppress the drugs and to dismiss the R/D/O charge, arguing that his flight from the officer didn’t justify the officer’s decision to arrest him. The trial judge granted the motion, suppressed all evidence from the arrest, and dismissed the R/D/O charge. The state appealed, and the court of appeals affirmed the dismissal of the R/D/O charge. Initially, it agreed with the state that “[t]here is simply no authority in Chapter 15A of the General Statutes that authorizes dismissal pre-trial [based on] the sufficiency of the evidence,” but it said that the state could not rely on that argument because it had acquiesced in the trial judge’s decision to consider the motion to dismiss. On the merits of the dismissal ruling, the court followed State v. Sinclair, 191 N.C. App. 485 (2008), which held that a [...]
Faculty Coordinators
