State v. Goins, 2021-NCCOA-499, 279 N.C. App. 448 (Sept. 21, 2021)

On remand from the Supreme Court’s opinion in State v. Goins, 2021-NCSC-65 (2021) directing the Court of Appeals to address the defendant’s remaining issues on appeal, the court determined that even if the trial court erred by allowing an investigator to interpret  certain video footage or in failing to instruct on a lesser-included offense, those assumed errors did not rise to the level of plain error.  The court noted that the Supreme Court already had interpreted under a less taxing standard certain other evidence in the case as “virtually uncontested” evidence of the defendant’s guilt and that it would create a paradox for the Court of Appeals to collaterally undermine that analysis by finding plain error with respect to the assumed errors at issue.