Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
State v. Marion, 233 N.C. App. 195 (Apr. 1, 2014)
The trial court erred by failing to arrest judgment on one of the underlying felonies supporting the defendant’s felony-murder convictions. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that judgment must be arrested on all of the felony convictions. The defendant asserted that because the trial court’s instructions were disjunctive and permitted the jury to find her guilty of felony-murder if it found that she committed “the felony of robbery with a firearm, burglary, and/or kidnapping,” the trial court should have arrested judgment on all of the felony convictions on the theory that they all could have served as the basis for the felony murder convictions. Citing prior case law the court rejected this argument, stating that “[i]n cases where the jury does not specifically determine which conviction serves as the underlying felony, we have held that the trial court may, in its discretion, select the felony judgment to arrest.”