Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
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This compendium includes significant criminal cases by the U.S. Supreme Court & N.C. appellate courts, Nov. 2008 – Present. Selected 4th Circuit cases also are included.
Jessica Smith prepared case summaries Nov. 2008-June 4, 2019; later summaries are prepared by other School staff.
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In this Guilford County case, defendant appealed the denial of his motions for appropriate relief (MARs), arguing error in summarily denying his MARs challenging the entry of his guilty plea. The Court of Appeals agreed, vacating the denials and remanding for an evidentiary hearing and findings of fact on defendant’s MARs.
In 2006, defendant was indicted for a robbery at a restaurant, and the charges included second-degree kidnapping and attempted kidnapping of two victims under sixteen years old. Defendant pleaded guilty to three charges and received an active sentence of imprisonment with nine months of post-release supervision; the trial court did not identify the offenses as reportable convictions. Afterwards, the Combined Records Section of North Carolina Department of Correction requested that the trial court clarify the ages of the kidnapping victims, and “[w]ithout prior notice nor Defendant being present, the trial court entered a ‘corrected’ judgment . . . indicating ‘the above designated offense(s) is a reportable conviction involving a minor. G.S. 14-208.6.’” Slip Op. at 2. This change required defendant to register as a sex offender and also required five years of post-release supervision. In defendant’s first MAR, he argued he did not learn of this change until right before his release from prison. The trial court denied defendant’s MARs without holding an evidentiary hearing.
Reviewing the MARs, the Court of Appeals highlighted that the issues before the trial court required settling factual disputes, and thus the trial court erred by failing to hold an evidentiary hearing. The record before the court did not contain a verbatim recording of defendant’s entry of his guilty plea, limiting the court’s ability to consider defendant’s claims. This required the court to remand for an evidentiary hearing and to vacate the previous rulings on the MARs.
Going further, the court also considered whether the sex-offender registration and post-release supervision were direct or collateral consequences of defendant’s guilty plea, as failure to advise defendant of direct consequences would render his guilty plea involuntary. Regarding sex-offender registration, the court held that “sex offender registration is a collateral consequence of a guilty plea to a crime requiring registration.” Id. at 14. However, the court held that “post-release supervision is distinguishable from . . . sex offender registration” and represented a direct consequence of the guilty plea. Id. at 19. The court directed the trial court to consider defendant’s arguments regarding his post-release supervision to determine whether his plea was entered “voluntarily, intelligently and understandingly.” Id. at 21.
In this Brunswick County case, defendant appealed after entering guilty pleas to four counts of second-degree exploitation of a minor. Defendant argued error in (1) requiring him to register for satellite-based monitoring (SBM) when he was in the low-risk range, and (2) sentencing him to probation after his post-release supervision was completed. The Court of Appeals agreed, vacating the SBM order without remand, and vacating the probation judgment and remanding to the trial court for further proceedings.
Defendant entered his guilty pleas in May 2023. The trial court entered four judgments; in the first, defendant was sentenced to 25 to 90 months of imprisonment, followed by the mandatory five years of post-release supervision for a reportable conviction under G.S. 14-208.6. The trial court suspended the active sentences of the other three judgments and imposed 60 months of probation to run consecutively with the first judgment. The trial court specified that “probation is not going to begin to run until the conclusion of his post-release supervision.” Slip Op. at 2. The trial court then conducted an SBM hearing where evidence of defendant’s STATIC-99R score of “1” was admitted, classifying him as “low risk range” for recidivism. Id. at 3. Despite the low risk score and the lack of additional evidence from the State, the trial court ordered five years of SBM, with no additional findings justifying the order. The Court of Appeals granted defendant’s petitions for writ of certiorari to consider both issues.
Considering (1), the court explained it was error under State v. Jones, 234 N.C. App. 239 (2014), to impose SBM on a low risk defendant without additional findings. Here the State admitted no evidence and the trial court made no findings justifying the imposition of SBM. The court held this was error, and following the Jonesprecedent, reversed the imposition of SBM without remand.
Moving to (2), the court noted that the structure of G.S. 15A-1346 could permit two different interpretations, as this section does not specifically address whether probation should run concurrently with post-release supervision. The section provides that probation must run concurrently with “probation, parole, or imprisonment,” but does not reference post-release supervision, and no previous case had determined “imprisonment” included post-release supervision. Id. at 10. This led the court to conclude that “the General Assembly has not clearly stated whether probation can run consecutively with post-release supervision.” Id. at 12. The court applied the rule of lenity and determined that defendant’s “probation must run concurrently with his post-release supervision.” Id. This necessitated vacating and remanding to the trial court for a new plea agreement or a trial on the matter.
The trial court did not err in ordering that an indigent defendant reimburse the State for the costs of providing a transcript of the defendant’s prior trial as a condition of post-release supervision.