Case Summaries – N.C. Court of Appeals (1/21/2020)

This post summarizes opinions issued by the Court of Appeals of North Carolina on January 21, 2020. The trial court did not err in finding that the defendant failed to establish a prima facie Batson claim. State v. Campbell, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (Jan. 21, 2020). In this first-degree murder case, defense counsel objected to the State’s use of peremptory challenges to strike three African American prospective jurors. The trial court denied defense counsel’s Batson challenge, finding that the defendant had not established a prima facie case that the State acted in a racially discriminatory manner. The Court of Appeals found no error, first denying the State’s motion to dismiss the appeal for failing to include a verbatim transcript of jury selection in the appellate record. A transcript is not required—although the court noted that it is “extremely difficult” to prevail on a Batson argument without one. Here, the Court of Appeals concluded that the narrative summary of jury selection proceedings in the appellate record was “minimally sufficient” to enable the court to review whether the defendant established a prima facie Batson claim by presenting factors relevant to the claim (so-called Quick factors, listed by the Supreme Court in State v. Quick, 341 N.C. 141 (1995), including the defendant’s race, the victim’s race, the race of key witnesses, and information about the State’s use of peremptory challenges to strike jurors based on race). On the merits, however, the court concluded over a dissent that without more information about [...]