State v. Land, 273 N.C. App. 384 (Sept. 1, 2020)

In this direct criminal contempt case involving summary proceedings where the defendant was sentenced for two instances of contempt, the Court of Appeals determined as a matter of first impression that the defendant did not have a statutory right to appointed counsel under G.S. 7A-451(a)(1).  The court explained that precedent from the United States Supreme Court and the North Carolina Supreme Court establishes that there is no Sixth Amendment right to counsel in summary proceedings for direct criminal contempt.  The court further explained that discussion in Jolly v. Wright, 300 N.C. 83 (1980), overruled on other grounds by McBride v. McBride, 334 N.C. 124 (1993), suggested that the language in G.S. 7A-451(a)(1) entitling an indigent defendant to appointed counsel in “any case” in which imprisonment or a fine of $500 or more is likely to be adjudged should be construed to refer to “any criminal case to which Sixth Amendment protections apply.”  The court went on to point out that the contemporaneous nature of summary proceedings for direct criminal contempt where the trial court acts on its own first-hand observations supported the conclusion that the statutory right to counsel does not apply, but cautioned trial courts to exercise restraint in such proceedings.

The court remanded the matter to the trial court to correct a clerical error regarding the length of one of the defendant’s contempt sentences.  The court also found that the trial court’s written judgment ordering that one of the sentences run consecutive to the other violated the defendant’s right to be present at sentencing because the trial court did not specify the consecutive nature of the sentence when rendering it orally while the defendant was present in the courtroom, and remanded for the entry of a new judgment in the defendant’s presence.