Until recently, a single judge sitting on a panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals could tee up an issue for the Supreme Court of North Carolina simply by filing a dissenting opinion. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7A-30(2) allowed...more
You can hit your snooze button a little later on Tuesdays. Effective January 1, 2025, the Court of Appeals’ scheduled filing days for opinions will be the first and third Wednesday of the month, Since the Court will be...more
The Supreme Court’s Technology Department has done it again. Quietly adding even more features to the appellate courts’ electronic filings site, www.ncappellatecourts.org. The filing site has long allowed attorneys and the...more
Trigger warning: this post may cause appellate lawyers to have nightmares. There has been a spate of technical glitches lately that caused critical notices from the North Carolina Court of Appeals to end up in “quarantine”...more
If you have had a case tentatively calendared for oral argument in the Fourth Circuit recently, then you likely received a notice to submit a specific form indicating whether you are aware of any cases currently pending in...more
Amici will soon have more opportunities to share their views with our North Carolina appellate courts. Currently, our Appellate Rules expressly allow for amicus participation at the merits-briefing stage. N.C. R. App. P....more
The Supreme Court of North Carolina gets a lot of questions and filings from unrepresented litigants. Often, those folks are in the wrong court (they should be in the Court of Appeals). Other times, they’re in the right...more
In a short order issued last week, the North Carolina Supreme Court narrowly voted to vacate a Court of Appeals’ opinion in connection with dismissing an appeal on mootness grounds. Well, I said that the order was short, but...more
Over the last few years, Confederate monuments in many North Carolina towns and cities have been objects of controversy. As one who parked for eighteen years in the shadow of the towering and now-departed Confederate...more
With little notice or fanfare, the latest North Carolina Senate budget bill stands poised to make a significant change in North Carolina appellate practice. Currently there are several routes to the Supreme Court of North...more
On May 3, 2022, the North Carolina Court of Appeals issued a large batch of opinions. By my count, twenty-two were published and thirty were unpublished. While history may prove me wrong, none of the published opinions...more
This blog post is a mishmash of news and updates. —Remote Oral Argument in Harper v. Hall (N.C. Congressional Maps Case). After a Supreme Court remand, the trial court entered an order upholding North Carolina’s...more
I am pleased to report that the Supreme Court of North Carolina has selected Grant Buckner as its 17th Clerk of Court. Grant is no stranger to the appellate courts. Early on in his career, he clerked for Judge (and later...more
The recent opinion of the North Carolina Court of Appeals in M.E. v. T.J., No. COA18-1045 has more twists than a Chubby Checker look-alike contest. The opinion is long and the facts and procedure are somewhat convoluted, but...more
Over the weekend, the last undecided race for North Carolina’s appellate courts was resolved when Chief Justice Cheri Beasley conceded the race to Senior Associate—and Chief Justice-Elect—Paul Newby. The race was...more
North Carolina General Statute § 7A-30(2) allows for an appeal as of right to the Supreme Court of North Carolina from “any decision of the Court of Appeals rendered in a case…in which there is a dissent.” Seems pretty...more
Last year, I blogged about State v. Ellis where a passing motorist gave a Highway Patrol trooper the middle-finger salute and was arrested for his trouble. A divided Court of Appeals allowed the defendant’s conviction to...more