Last week, the state supreme court unanimously reversed State v. Turner, __ N.C. App. __, 793 S.E.2d 287 (2016), and held that any “any criminal pleading that establishes jurisdiction in the district court should toll the two-year statute of limitations” set forth in G.S. 15-1. It did so in a case named State v. Curtis. This post recaps the Turner controversy and unpacks the ruling in Curtis. Refresher on Turner. Shea wrote about Turner here. In brief, it was a DWI case in which an officer issued a citation that a magistrate subsequently converted into a magistrate’s order. At that time, G.S. 15-1 provided that a misdemeanor must be “presented or found by the grand jury within two years.” After the case had been pending for more than two years, the defendant moved to dismiss, contending that because he had not been charged in an indictment or presentment within two years, the misdemeanor statute of limitations in G.S. 15-1 had run. Further, while the Supreme Court of North Carolina had ruled in State v. Underwood, 244 N.C. 68 (1956), that an arrest warrant was also sufficient to toll the statute, the defendant pointed out that there hadn’t been one of those, either: there was a just a citation that became a magistrate’s order, two pleadings not listed in G.S. 15-1. A district court judge, a superior court judge, and the court of appeals agreed with the defendant that the statute had run, with the appellate court stating expressly that the “issuance [...]
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