Case Summaries - Supreme Court of N.C. (June 17, 2022)

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the Supreme Court of North Carolina released on June 17, 2022. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present. These summaries were prepared by School of Government Legal Research Associate Alex Phipps, except for the summaries of Conner (prepared by Shea Denning) and Kelliher (prepared by Jamie Markham). Trial court properly considered circumstantial evidence as sufficient to justify denial of defendant’s motion to dismiss. State v. Dover, 2022-NCSC-76, ___ N.C. ___ (June 17, 2022). In this Rowan County case, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and determined that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence in the record to support denial of defendant’s motion to dismiss charges of robbery and first-degree murder. At trial, evidence was admitted that defendant worked with the victim, had recently asked the victim for money (a request the victim denied), was in possession of a large amount of cash hidden in a suspicious manner, lied to police officers about his whereabouts on the night of the crime, and used his cellphone in the vicinity of the victim’s residence. Defendant’s motion to dismiss rested on the lack of direct evidence tying defendant to the crime, as no evidence directly showed that defendant entered the victim’s residence or stabbed the victim, and no evidence connected the cash in defendant’s possession directly to the victim. The Supreme Court determined that the circumstantial evidence was sufficient to support the [...]