Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
State v. Calderon, 242 N.C. App. 125 (Jul. 7, 2015)
In this case involving three accomplices and charges of armed robbery, common law robbery and attempted armed robbery, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that he could not have been convicted of attempted armed robbery under the theory of acting in concert because the trial court did not specifically instruct the jury on that theory in its charge on that count. The trial court gave the acting in concert instruction with respect to the counts of armed and common law robbery; it did not however repeat the acting in concert instruction after instructing on attempted robbery with a firearm. Considering the jury instructions as a whole and the evidence, the court declined to hold that the trial court’s failure to repeat the instruction was likely to have misled the jury.