Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
State v. Anderson, ___ N.C. App. ___, 804 S.E.2d 189 (Aug. 1, 2017)
Where a negotiated plea agreement involving several charges included a plea to a crime later held to be unconstitutional, the entire agreement must be set aside. After the jury convicted the defendant of being a sex offender on the premises of a daycare, the defendant pled guilty based on a negotiated plea arrangement to being a sex offender unlawfully within 300 feet of a daycare, failing to report a new address as a sex offender, and three counts of attaining habitual felon status. While his direct appeal was pending, the statute prohibiting a sex offender from being within 300 feet of a daycare was held to be unconstitutional. The court thus held that the defendant’s conviction for that offense must be vacated. Having determined that the defendant’s guilty plea to violating the unconstitutional statute must be vacated the essential and fundamental terms of the plea agreement became unfulfillable and that the entire plea agreement must be set aside.