Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (Feb. 1, 2022)

This post summarizes criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals published on February 1, 2022. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present. (1) A general objection with no request for a voir dire does not preserve the defendant’s right to appellate review of a motion to suppress. (2) The trial court did not err by denying codefendants’ motions to dismiss when, viewed in the light most favorable to the State, there was substantial evidence of each element of the charges. (3) A defendant’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict was not preserved for appellate review when trial counsel did not state the specific grounds for the motion. State v. Draughon, 2022-NCCOA-58, ___ N.C. App.  ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (Feb. 1, 2022). In this Hoke County case, defendant Stanley Draughon was found guilty by a jury of assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill inflicting serious injury (AWDWIKISI) and conspiracy to commit AWDWIKISI, and defendant Phyllis Mull was found guilty of conspiracy to commit AWDWIKISI. The charges arose from an incident in which Draughon and an unidentified man beat a victim, McBryde, with an object and tased him, breaking several bones in his arms and legs, among other injuries. At trial, Draughon’s lawyer objected to the State’s questioning related to Draughon’s cell phone, which had been seized from the vehicle of the person who drove Draughon to the sheriff’s office [...]