Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
State v. Gray, 234 N.C. App. 197 (Jun. 3, 2014)
In an attempted armed robbery case where the defendant was alleged to have acted with others, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying the defendant’s motion to continue, made shortly before trial and after a 24-hour continuance already had been granted to the defense. The defendant argued that the continuance was needed because of the late receipt of an accomplice’s statement indicating that another accomplice had the gun during incident. The trial court denied the motion, reasoning that the statement was duplicative, did not introduce any new actors or witnesses, and did not significantly change the State’s case against the defendant. The trial court explained that legally it did not matter who possessed the gun; if one of the perpetrators possessed a gun, all perpetrators were guilty to the same extent. Additionally, the trial court noted that it already had granted a defense motion to continue. The court of appeals agreed that the statement did not significantly change the case to the defendant’s prejudice so as to require additional time to prepare for trial.