When a group of confederates undertake to commit a series of criminal acts, is there one conspiracy or multiple conspiracies? The case of State v. Glisson, ___ N.C. App. ___, 796 S.E.2d 124, (Feb. 7, 2017), dealt with that issue. The answer, it turns out, is fact-specific and less than crystal clear. Facts. The facts in Glisson involved a series of sales of oxycodone, an opiate, by the defendant to an undercover agent in Jones County. There were three transactions, leading to a total of 18 charges against the defendant. The defendant’s husband accompanied her to each sale, and there was at least some circumstantial evidence indicating he was aware of the transactions. The first two transactions took place a month apart; the final transaction occurred around three months later. The defendant was ultimately convicted of multiple conspiracy counts, including conspiracy to traffic opiates (among other charges). As readers may be aware and as previously noted , conspiracy to traffic is punished at the same level as the substantive trafficking offense, a statutory deviation from the usual rule that conspiracy is punished one class lower than the substantive offense. On appeal, the defendant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence of one of her conspiracy convictions, arguing in part that the evidence supported only one continuing conspiracy. The Rules. “There is no simple test for determining whether single or multiple conspiracies are involved: the essential question is the nature of the agreement or agreements[;] . . . factors such as time intervals, [...]
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