The following is a complete collection of past case briefs from the North Carolina Law Review Forum that provide concise summary and brief, high-level analysis of cases from the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
Bradford Moore Lewis | April 2024
Recently, notorious officer misconduct has placed the conduct of police under increased scrutiny. In response, Americans have demanded more accountability and checks on police power and discretion. One original check on police misconduct, found in the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, provides that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” However, courts have allowed police some discretion to search and detain individuals when executing a legal warrant out of concern for officer safety. Thus, the question has become where to draw the line between protecting an individual’s Fourth Amendment rights and allowing officers to safely execute a warrant.
In North Carolina, a recent case made the question even more specific: How far away can an individual, not subject to a search warrant, be from the premises of the warrant and still be detained out of safety concerns for officers? In State v. Tripp, the Supreme Court of North Carolina suggests that the answer is sixty yards. However, the divided court could not form a majority, leaving the ultimate answer in North Carolina undecided.
COMMITTEE TO ELECT DAN FOREST V. EMPLOYEES POLITICAL ACTOIN COMMITTEE
Kate Giduz | January 2023
The “thorny thicket” of standing is a “tortuous track”—a track that the Supreme Court of North Carolina has tried to avoid. At a constitutional minimum, federal standing requires three elements: “First, the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of—the injury has to be fairly . . . trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant, and not . . . th[e] result [of] the independent action of some third party not before the court. Third, it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.”
State standing, however, can be more permissive than federal standing. While some state courts have explicitly addressed standing under their state constitutions, until 2021, North Carolina had not directly addressed what the North Carolina Constitution requires for a plaintiff to enter the “courthouse doors.” In Committee to Elect Dan Forest v. Employees Political Action Committee, the Supreme Court of North Carolina finally confronted this question. In doing so, it held that the North Carolina Constitution does not require injury in fact, and it eliminated proof of injury in fact as a prerequisite for statutory standing. The court held that as long as a plaintiff has a cause of action under a statute, and as long as their interests are injured or they are in the class of persons that the statute aims to protect, “the legal injury itself gives rise to standing.”
Gabrielle L. Motsinger | January 2022
The rate of sexual assault in higher education continues to be alarmingly high. Although legislation, such as Title IX, has been enacted to ensure that universities are responding promptly to sexual assault allegations, compliance is not guaranteed. When the Office for Civil Rights began to investigate the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for noncompliance and mishandling sexual assault cases, media outlets filed an action seeking disclosure of disciplinary records of students that had violated UNC’s sexual assault policy. In DTH Media Corp. v. Folt, the Supreme Court of North Carolina mandated the release of these records. The court held that the University does not have discretion to withhold the disciplinary records—as stated in the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”)—but instead is required to disclose the information under the North Carolina Public Records Act.
George Dylan Boan | January 2022
It is every parent’s worst nightmare—their small child comes across a loaded gun. In a flash, tragedy strikes. To compound the psychological toll of losing their child under these circumstances, imagine it happens at the home of someone entrusted with the care of their child. The question becomes: Can the parents sustain a claim of negligent infliction of emotional distress (“NIED”) for the suffering bound to ensue? It was precisely this question that the Supreme Court of North Carolina addressed in Newman v. Stepp on December 18, 2020.
To state a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress in North Carolina, a plaintiff must allege that (1) the defendant negligently engaged in conduct, (2) it was reasonably foreseeable that such conduct would cause the plaintiff severe emotional distress, and (3) the conduct did in fact cause the plaintiff severe emotional distress. In Newman, the Supreme Court of North Carolina addressed problems with the trial court’s review and decision regarding the second element. The Supreme Court of North Carolina held that in evaluating an NIED pleading, “the question of reasonable foreseeability must be determined under all of the facts presented and should be resolved on a case-by-case basis instead of mechanistic requirement[s] associated with the presence or absence of the Johnson factors.”
Sarah A. Benecky | January 2021
On August 14, 2020, the Supreme Court of North Carolina changed the course of Marcus Robinson’s life. The court vacated Robinson’s death sentence under the since-repealed Racial Justice Act (“RJA” or “the Act”), reinstating his sentence of life imprisonment without parole. This was not the first time Robinson had been taken off death row. In 2012, Robinson successfully challenged his capital sentence under the RJA and was resentenced to life imprisonment. However, the following year, Republicans strengthened their control over the North Carolina legislature. The legislature repealed the RJA and added a provision to make the repeal apply retroactively. Robinson returned to death row.
In its recent decision in State v. Robinson, the Supreme Court of North Carolina held that the trial court violated Robinson’s rights under the North Carolina Constitution by reimposing his death sentence pursuant to the repeal of the RJA. In the court’s view, the trial court’s 2012 finding that race was a substantial factor in Robinson’s sentencing constituted an acquittal of the death penalty for purposes of double jeopardy. The Robinson decision marked the first time the Supreme Court of North Carolina explicitly recognized the pervasive racial bias evident in the state’s use of capital punishment.
Meredith I. Lewis | January 2021
It is no secret that North Carolina courts fall drastically behind other states in regard to addressing racial discrimination in jury selection. The historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Batson v. Kentucky prohibited the use of race-based peremptory challenges in 1986, but North Carolina courts have continued to ignore and misapply the proper standard from that case. Notably, North Carolina remains the only state in the Fourth Circuit—and the South as a whole—whose appellate courts have found only one substantive Batson violation, despite having faced the issue over one hundred times. The Supreme Court of North Carolina issued a recent opinion on the matter in State v. Hobbs on May 1, 2020. This case represents the first time in ten years that the high court has heard a Batson challenge.
It is well established that a Batson challenge requires the trial court to conduct a three-step inquiry. First, the defendant must make a prima facie case of discriminatory intent; second, the State must offer a race-neutral justification for the challenge; and third, the trial court must determine if the defendant has proven purposeful discrimination. In Hobbs, the Supreme Court of North Carolina addressed problems with the lower courts’ review and decisions on steps one and three. Hobbs is an important case for North Carolina trial judges and attorneys because: (1) it emphasizes that the burden of proving a prima facie case is lower than that which is applied by North Carolina courts, (2) it clarifies the standard of review for district and appellate courts when reviewing Batson claims, and (3) it provides additional instruction and awareness to prosecutors when using peremptory strikes.
Will Bowers | May 2020
On May 10, 2019, the North Carolina Supreme Court issued its opinion in Piazza v. Kirkbride. After Neogence Enterprises, Inc. began experiencing financial troubles which caused it to cease business performance, its angel investors filed suit in Wake County Superior Court to recoup their investments. The investors, enticed to invest by statements from two Neogence executives, Mr. David Kirkbride and Mr. Robert Rice, and a Neogence director, Dr. Gregory Brannon, argued that the statements were material misstatements under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 78A-56(a)(2). In the trial court and on appeal, Dr. Brannon contended that (1) he was not a “seller” under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 78A-56(a)(2) because he did not own the securities; (2) he did not have the required scienter under the statute; (3) the “Director Safe Harbor” provision of the North Carolina Business Corporation Act shielded him from civil liability; and (4) the verdicts were inconsistent after a jury exonerated one of the Neogence executives, but not Dr. Brannon.
At the trial court level, a jury ruled against Dr. Brannon, and the appeals court affirmed. Ultimately, the Supreme Court affirmed with modifications. Dodging the merits of Dr. Brannon’s defenses, three of which were of first impression, the Court relied on procedure, holding that Dr. Brannon did not preserve his defenses because he did not properly request their inclusion in the necessary jury instructions.
Kelsey Cullinan Reed | May 2020
This case turns on the question of whether the trial court erred by terminating a mother’s parental rights to her daughter, Bev, because she “had failed to make reasonable progress in correcting the conditions that led to Bev’s removal from her home.” Bev was born on April 4, 2015, and on August 9, 2015, law enforcement arrested both parents after responding to a request from the mother for help in dealing with a domestic violence situation with the father. The next day, the Granville County Department of Social Services (“DSS”) filed a petition alleging that the child was a neglected juvenile and a judge entered an order granting nonsecure custody to DSS because Bev had been in the home during the altercation and had a bruised right arm.
On January 25, 2017, DSS filed a petition to have the mother’s parental rights terminated because she had “neglected Bev and had ‘willfully left the juvenile in foster care or placement outside the home for more than 12 months without showing to the satisfaction of the court that reasonable progress under the circumstances ha[d] been made in correcting those conditions which led to removal of the juvenile.’” On September 8, 2017, the trial court terminated the mother’s parental rights in Bev under § 7B-1111(a)(2) of the North Carolina General Statutes because termination of her parental rights was in Bev’s best interests.
Ryan Collins | May 2020
On May 14, 2013, Torrey Grady walked out of the New Hanover County Courthouse in Wilmington, North Carolina, with the knowledge that he would spend the rest of his life under the watchful eyes of the State. Mr. Grady had not received a life sentence, nor even been sentenced at all—indeed, as far as the State of North Carolina was concerned, he had received all of the punishment he was due for a series of sex crimes committed between 1997 and 2006. However, pursuant to a law passed by the General Assembly in 2010, Mr. Grady had been ordered to enroll in the state’s satellite-based monitoring (“SBM”) program. The statute requires that certain classes of sex offenders be automatically subjected to electronic tracking, via an ankle bracelet, for the remainder of their natural lives, without any individualized consideration of the defendant’s particular circumstances.
What followed was six years of appellate litigation, including a trip the United States Supreme Court, in which Grady contested the constitutionality of his mandatory SBM enrollment. Grady alleged that the imposition of SBM “violate[d] his rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure as guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment . . .” In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the program did in fact constitute a Fourth Amendment search, but remanded the case back to the state courts to determine whether or not the search as “unreasonable” and therefore unconstitutional. The Supreme Court of North Carolina put the issue to rest, at least temporarily, in August of 2019 when it concluded that the search was unreasonable with regard to individuals who, like Grady, “are subject to mandatory lifetime SBM based solely on their status as a statutorily defined ‘recidivist.’” The case presents a deep, if nuanced, insight into the court’s thinking on the emergent technology of satellite based monitoring and its future within Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.
Kelsey Cullinan Reed | May 2020
In the case In re J.A.M., the North Carolina Supreme Court reviewed whether a trial court’s finding that an infant was neglected was supported by clear and convincing evidence as required by state law. The Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals’ determination that the “cumulative weight” of the factual findings of the trial court was sufficient to support an adjudication of neglect and held that the appellate court had properly applied the required standard of review. In particular, the Court held that previous adjudications of neglect of other children in the home plus present risk factors were enough to support an adjudication of neglect of J.A.M.