State v. Davis, 208 N.C. App. 26 (Nov. 16, 2010)

The trial court committed prejudicial error by admitting, under rule 404(b), the defendant’s prior impaired driving convictions to show malice for purposes of a second-degree murder charge. Three of the defendant’s four prior impaired driving convictions occurred eighteen or nineteen years prior to the accident at issue and one occurred two years prior. Given the sixteen-year gap between the older convictions and the more recent one, the court held that there was not a clear and consistent pattern of criminality and that the older convictions were too remote to be admissible under rule 404(b).