Case Name: STATE of North Carolina v. James Harold COURTNEY, III
Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
Jurisdiction: North Carolina
Decision Date: 2019-08-16
Citations: 831 S.E.2d 260
Docket Number: No. 160PA18
Parties: STATE of North Carolina
v.
James Harold COURTNEY, III
Judges: 
Reporter: South Eastern Reporter 2d
Volume: 831
Pages: 260–283

Head Matter:
STATE of North Carolina
v.
James Harold COURTNEY, III
No. 160PA18
Supreme Court of North Carolina.
Filed August 16, 2019
Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Jess D. Mekeel, Special Deputy Attorney General, and Benjamin O. Zellinger, Assistant Attorney General, for the State-appellant.
Glenn Gerding, Appellate Defender, by Amanda S. Zimmer, Assistant Appellate Defender, for defendant-appellee.
Tin Fulton Walker & Owen, PLLC, Charlotte, by Matthew G. Pruden ; and Devereux & Banzhoff, PLLC, Asheville, by Andrew B. Banzhoff, for North Carolina Advocates for Justice, amicus curiae.
HUDSON, Justice This case comes to us by way of the State's appeal from a unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals holding that defendant's right to be free from double jeopardy was violated when the State voluntarily dismissed defendant's charge after his first trial ended in a hung jury mistrial. Defendant was retried nearly six years later, after new evidence emerged. The State argues that jeopardy is deemed never to have attached because of the mistrial, so that defendant was not in jeopardy at the time that his second trial began. In the alternative, the State argues that, even if defendant remained in jeopardy following the mistrial, the State's voluntary dismissal without leave did not terminate that jeopardy and that the State was not barred from trying the defendant a second time. We are not persuaded by either of the State's arguments and, thus, affirm the Court of Appeals.
Today we recognize, in accordance with double jeopardy principles set out by this Court and the United States Supreme Court, that jeopardy attaches when the jury is empaneled and continues following a mistrial until a terminating event occurs. We hold that when the State enters a voluntary dismissal under N.C.G.S. § 15A-931 after jeopardy has attached, jeopardy is terminated in the defendant's favor, regardless of the reason the State gives for entering the dismissal. The State cannot then retry the case without violating a defendant's right to be free from double jeopardy. When the State dismisses a charge under section 15A-931 after jeopardy has attached, jeopardy terminates. Thus, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals vacating defendant's conviction on double jeopardy grounds and remand to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Background
Defendant was arrested on 2 November 2009 for the murder of James Carol Deberry, which was committed three days earlier on 31 October 2009; he was indicted on 30 November 2009. Defendant's trial began on 6 December 2010, at which point a jury was empaneled and evidence presented. On 9 December 2010, the trial court declared a mistrial after the jury foreperson reported that the jury was hopelessly deadlocked. Defendant was released the same day. Following the hung jury mistrial declaration, the trial court continued the case so the State could decide whether it would re-try defendant on the murder charge. The trial court held status hearings on 16 December 2010 and on 10 February 2011. The trial court's orders from both hearings noted that the case had ended in mistrial and that it would be continued to another status hearing for the State to decide whether it intended to re-try defendant. Ultimately, the State entered a dismissal of the murder charge against defendant on 14 April 2011 , by filing form AOC-CR-307 with the trial court. Like many similar forms, form AOC-CR-307 includes multiple options; the State may use the form to enter a dismissal, a dismissal with leave, or a notice of reinstatement for a case that had previously been dismissed with leave. The State left blank the sections for dismissal with leave and reinstatement but checked the box in the "dismissal" section next to the statement "[t]he undersigned prosecutor enters a dismissal to the above charge(s) and assigns the following reasons." The State checked the box marked "other" in the list of reasons for dismissal and wrote underneath: "hung jury, state has elected not to re-try case." In addition, the State modified a statement on the form to reflect the circumstances so that it reads: "A jury has
not
been impaneled
nor
and has evidence [sic] been introduced." The State's voluntary dismissal of the charge was signed by the prosecutor.
Several years passed, and the State discovered additional evidence related to the case. In 2013 and 2014, fingerprints and DNA from a cigarette found at the scene of the murder were found to belong to an individual named Ivan McFarland. A review of the cell phone activity for McFarland and defendant revealed that defendant had McFarland's cell phone number in his phone, that five calls had been made between the two phones on the night of the murder, and that cell phone tower data placed both men in the vicinity near where the murder occurred.
A second warrant for defendant's arrest for murder was issued on 16 June 2015, and defendant was re-indicted on 6 July 2015. On 7 October 2016, defendant filed a motion to dismiss the indictment based on N.C.G.S. § 15A-931, the voluntary dismissal statute, on estoppel and double jeopardy grounds, as well as a second motion to dismiss the murder charge for violating defendant's rights to a speedy trial under the state and federal constitutions. On 10 October 2016, the trial court in open court denied defendant's motion to dismiss based on double jeopardy. Defendant was tried for the second time 31 October 2016 through 9 November 2016 in the Superior Court in Wake County. At that trial, the jury found defendant guilty of second-degree murder, and the trial court sentenced defendant to between 220 and 273 months in prison.
Defendant appealed to the Court of Appeals, where he argued that his right to be free from double jeopardy was violated when the State re-tried him on the same charge following its voluntary dismissal of the charge after defendant's first trial ended in a hung jury mistrial. In a unanimous opinion filed on 15 May 2018, the Court of Appeals agreed with defendant that his second prosecution violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution. State v. Courtney , --- N.C.App. ----, 817 S.E.2d 412, 422 (2018) The Court of Appeals noted that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not prevent the State from retrying a defendant following a hung jury mistrial, but it listed three categories of jeopardy-terminating events that do bar a subsequent prosecution-jury acquittals, judicial acquittals, and "certain non-defense-requested terminations of criminal proceedings, such as non-procedural dismissals or improperly declared mistrials, that for double jeopardy purposes are functionally equivalent to acquittals." Id. at 418 (citing Lee v. United States , 432 U.S. 23, 30, 97 S. Ct. 2141, 2145, 53 L. Ed. 2d 80, 87 (1977) ; United States v. Scott , 437 U.S. 82, 99-100, 98 S. Ct. 2187, 2198, 57 L. Ed. 2d 65, 79-80 (1978) ). The panel concluded that the dismissal entered by the State in this case fell within this third category, "interpret[ing] section 15A-931 as according that dismissal the same constitutional finality and conclusiveness as an acquittal for double jeopardy purposes." Id. at 419. Thus, the Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court had erred in denying defendant's motion to dismiss his 2015 indictment, and it vacated defendant's conviction. On 20 September 2018, we allowed the State's petition for discretionary review of the decision of the Court of Appeals.
Analysis
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution states that "[n]o person shall ... be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb[.]" U.S. Const. amend. V. The U.S. Constitution's guaranty against double jeopardy applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, see Benton v. Maryland , 395 U.S. 784, 794, 89 S. Ct. 2056, 2062, 23 L. Ed. 2d 707, 716 (1969), and we have long recognized that the Law of the Land Clause found in our state's constitution also contains a prohibition against double jeopardy, N.C. Const. art. I, § 19 ; State v. Sanderson , 346 N.C. 669, 676, 488 S.E.2d 133, 136 (1997) ; see also State v. Crocker , 239 N.C. 446, 80 S.E.2d 243 (1954). "The underlying idea [of this constitutional protection] is that the State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty." Green v. United States , 355 U.S. 184, 187-88, 78 S. Ct. 221, 223, 2 L. Ed. 2d 199, 204 (1957). In situations where jeopardy has not attached or where, having attached, jeopardy has not yet been terminated, the State retains the power to proceed with a prosecution. But under the Double Jeopardy Clause, "once a defendant is placed in jeopardy for an offense, and jeopardy terminates with respect to that offense, the defendant may neither be tried nor punished a second time for the same offense." Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania , 537 U.S. 101, 106, 123 S. Ct. 732, 736, 154 L. Ed. 2d 588, 595 (2003) (citation omitted).
When the Double Jeopardy Clause is implicated, an individual's right to be free from a second prosecution is not up for debate based upon countervailing policy considerations. See Burks v. United States , 437 U.S. 1, 11 n.6, 98 S. Ct. 2141, 2147 n.6, 57 L. Ed. 2d 1, 9 n.6 (1978) ("[W]here the Double Jeopardy Clause is applicable, its sweep is absolute. There are no 'equities' to be balanced, for the Clause has declared a constitutional policy, based on grounds which are not open to judicial examination.").
We review de novo a defendant's claim that a prosecution violated the defendant's right to be free from double jeopardy. State v. Sparks , 362 N.C. 181, 186, 657 S.E.2d 655, 658 (2008). The United States Supreme Court has recognized a two-pronged analysis to determine whether a violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause has occurred: "First, did jeopardy attach to [the defendant]? Second, if so, did the proceeding end in such a manner that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars his retrial?"
Martinez v. Illinois , 572 U.S. 833, 838, 134 S. Ct. 2070, 2074, 188 L. Ed. 2d 1112, 1117 (2014).
The State asks this Court to hold that neither of these two preconditions for a double jeopardy violation were present here and that, therefore, the re-trial in this case did not offend double jeopardy principles. First, the State argues that, notwithstanding the fact that the defendant was tried once for this murder charge, jeopardy never attached under these circumstances, meaning that jeopardy attached for the first time when the jury was empaneled in the second trial. Second, the State contends that, even if jeopardy did attach when the jury was empaneled and sworn in the first trial, the prosecution's voluntary dismissal of the indictment under N.C.G.S. § 15A-931 was not an event that terminated jeopardy. We are not persuaded by either argument and conclude that the unanimous panel below correctly held that the second trial of defendant violated his rights under the Double Jeopardy Clause.
The parties' filings disagree on which day in April 2011 the State entered its dismissal. However, the copy of the form included in the record appears to be dated 14 April 2011, which is also the date referenced in the Court of Appeals opinion. Any disagreement over the date does not impact the result of the case.
McFarland was also indicted for the murder, and, as noted by the Court of Appeals, his trial was apparently scheduled to take place after defendant's trial. However, the record is silent as to the outcome of McFarland's trial.
Defendant's motion to dismiss based on speedy trial grounds was denied in open court on 31 October 2016, and an order with findings of fact and conclusions of law was filed on 3 November 2016.
Defendant raised three other issues before the Court of Appeals. Defendant argued, in the alternative, that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss based on a violation of his right to a speedy trial. In addition, defendant argued that certain evidence was erroneously admitted at trial and that his statutory right not to be tried within a week of his arraignment was violated. Because the Court of Appeals found defendant's double jeopardy issue to be dispositive, it did not address his remaining three arguments, none of which are the subject of this appeal. Courtney , 817 S.E.2d at 416.

Opinion:
I. Attachment and Continuation of Jeopardy
"There are few if any rules of criminal procedure clearer than the rule that 'jeopardy attaches when the jury is empaneled and sworn.' " Martinez , 572 U.S. at 839, 134 S. Ct. at 2074, 188 L. Ed. 2d at 1117 (citations omitted). See also State v. Shuler , 293 N.C. 34, 42, 235 S.E.2d 226, 231 (1977) ("Jeopardy attaches when a defendant in a criminal prosecution is placed on trial: (1) on a valid indictment or information, (2) before a court of competent jurisdiction, (3) after arraignment, (4) after plea, and (5) when a competent jury has been empaneled and sworn.").
Though retrials may proceed in certain circumstances without violating the Due Process Clause, such as when a trial ends in mistrial or when a defendant secures the relief of a new trial after an original conviction is vacated on appeal, see Richardson v. United States , 468 U.S. 317, 326, 104 S. Ct. 3081, 3086, 82 L. Ed. 2d 242, 251 (1984), "it became firmly established by the end of the 19th century that a defendant could be put in jeopardy even in a prosecution that did not culminate in a conviction or an acquittal, and this concept has been long established as an integral part of double jeopardy jurisprudence." Crist v. Bretz , 437 U.S. 28, 34, 98 S. Ct. 2156, 2160, 57 L. Ed. 2d 24, 30 (1978).
In Richardson v. United States , the United States Supreme Court, recognizing that jeopardy attaches when a jury is sworn, held that a hung jury mistrial does not terminate that jeopardy in the defendant's favor. 468 U.S. at 326, 104 S. Ct. at 3086, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 251. Specifically, the Court stated
we reaffirm the proposition that a trial court's declaration of a mistrial following a hung jury is not an event that terminates the original jeopardy to which petitioner was subjected. The Government, like the defendant, is entitled to resolution of the case by verdict from the jury, and jeopardy does not terminate when the jury is discharged because it is unable to agree.
Id. The Richardson Court rejected the defendant's implicit argument that his hung jury mistrial was a jeopardy-terminating event but, importantly, recognized the fact that jeopardy had attached and remained attached following the mistrial. Id. at 325, 104 S. Ct. at 3086, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 251 ("Since jeopardy attached here when the jury was sworn, petitioner's argument necessarily assumes that the judicial declaration of a mistrial was an event which terminated jeopardy in his case and which allowed him to assert a valid claim of double jeopardy. But this proposition is irreconcilable with [the Court's prior cases], and we hold on the authority of these cases that the failure of the jury to reach a verdict is not an event which terminates jeopardy.") (citing United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co. , 430 U.S. 564, 569, 97 S. Ct. 1349, 1353, 51 L. Ed.2d 642 (1977) ).
The principle affirmed in Richardson that the original jeopardy continues, rather than terminates, following a hung jury mistrial, has been reaffirmed in more recent statements from the Court. See Yeager v. United States , 557 U.S. 110, 118, 129 S. Ct. 2360, 2366, 174 L. Ed. 2d 78, 87 (2009) ("[W]e have held that the second trial does not place the defendant in jeopardy 'twice.' Instead, a jury's inability to reach a decision is the kind of 'manifest necessity' that permits the declaration of a mistrial and the continuation of the initial jeopardy that commenced when the jury was first impaneled.") (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
The State concedes that jeopardy attaches when a jury is empaneled; however, it argues that the occurrence of a hung jury mistrial sets in motion a legal fiction in which the clock is wound back, placing the case back in pre-trial status such that jeopardy is deemed never to have attached. The State's argument posits two necessary conditions.
First, the State argues that the United States Supreme Court has never held that jeopardy continues following a mistrial, notwithstanding the clear language to the contrary found in Richardson and Yeager . The State contends that the multiple statements by the Court appearing to embrace the doctrine of continuing jeopardy are dicta because a number of those cases did not squarely address the Double Jeopardy Clause's limits on prosecutors' ability to bring a second prosecution on the same charge following a declaration of a hung-jury mistrial that was not sought by the defendant. The State argues that even Richardson 's continuing jeopardy discussion is "[a]rguably . dictum because by finding a mistrial was not a terminating event, it was immaterial whether or not jeopardy had continued, as opposed to the case being placed back in the pre-trial posture[.]"
The second element of the State's argument that jeopardy did not attach appears to be as follows: because the U.S. Supreme Court, in the State's view, has not formally adopted the continuing jeopardy doctrine, this Court is free to follow its own precedent on the matter. The State further argues that this Court has explicitly held that upon the declaration of a hung jury mistrial, a legal fiction goes into effect under which jeopardy is deemed never to have attached at the first trial, meaning that no jeopardy exists to continue and eventually terminate. Thus, the State contends that, following his 2010 trial, defendant was placed in precisely the same position in which he stood before trial, and it was only when the jury was empaneled at defendant's second trial in 2016 that jeopardy first attached. We find both components of the State's proffered theory that defendant was not in jeopardy at the time of the mistrial to be wholly without merit.
In Richardson , the Supreme Court stated multiple times that jeopardy, which existed prior to a mistrial, does not terminate following the mistrial. The Court in Richardson "reaffirm[ed] the proposition that a trial court's declaration of a mistrial following a hung jury is not an event that terminates the original jeopardy to which petitioner was subjected ," and reiterated that "jeopardy does not terminate when the jury is discharged because it is unable to agree." Richardson, 468 U.S. at 326, 104 S. Ct. at 3086, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 251 (emphases added). The State argues, however, that merely because the Richardson Court held that "jeopardy does not terminate" following a hung jury mistrial "does not necessarily mean that jeopardy had continued" because, under the State's theory, jeopardy would not terminate because jeopardy would no longer be deemed in effect. While this is a creative argument, it is foreclosed by a commonsense reading of Richardson .
First, the Richardson Court clearly contemplates the continuation of jeopardy at the time of the mistrial. If the Court had intended to say that jeopardy, which attaches when the jury is empaneled, can-only in the singular context of a hung jury mistrial-be retroactively deemed never to have attached, it could have done so. Instead, the Court stated that the original jeopardy did not terminate, thus signaling that jeopardy continued. We see no logical interpretation of the Court's declaration in Richardson that the original jeopardy did not terminate other than to acknowledge that the original jeopardy continued .
Second, the outcome and legal significance of Richardson cannot be separated from its text. The continuing jeopardy doctrine reaffirmed by Richardson provided a rationale for the longstanding practice of permitting retrial following a hung jury mistrial that was consistent with the guarantee of the Double Jeopardy Clause. See Richardson , 468 U.S. at 324, 104 S. Ct. at 3085, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 250 (citing Logan v. United States , 144 U.S. 263, 297-98, 12 S. Ct. 617, 627-28, 36 L. Ed. 429, 441 (1892) ; Arizona v. Washington , 434 U.S. 497, 509, 98 S. Ct. 824, 832, 54 L. Ed. 2d 717, 730 (1978) ). The State here argues against the existence of a legal principle that secures the government's right to retry a defendant following mistrial in the face of legal opposition to those retrials on double jeopardy grounds. The State rejects the principle that permitted the Government to prevail in Richardson -that jeopardy continues, rather than terminates, following a mistrial-in favor of an argument that, following a mistrial, jeopardy neither continues nor terminates but rather is deemed never to have attached in the first place. Thus, the State's argument that the Supreme Court has not embraced the principle of continuing jeopardy following a mistrial is unsupported by either the text or context of Richardson .
The State also points to United States v. Sanford , 429 U.S. 14, 97 S. Ct. 20, 50 L. Ed. 2d 17 (1976) (per curiam) to support its argument that, following a hung jury mistrial, a defendant is placed back in a pre-trial posture and jeopardy is deemed not to have attached. In Sanford , defendants were indicted for illegal game hunting, and their trial resulted in a hung jury mistrial. Id. at 14, 97 S. Ct. at 20, 50 L. Ed. 2d at 19. Four months later, as the Government was preparing to retry the case, the trial court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the indictment, concluding that the Government had consented to the activities described in the indictment. Id. The Government appealed. Id. The Supreme Court reversed a decision of the circuit court dismissing the Government's appeal on double jeopardy grounds, concluding that "[t]he dismissal in this case, like that in [ Serfass v. United States , 420 U.S. 377, 95 S. Ct. 1055, 43 L. Ed. 2d 265 (1975) ], was prior to a trial that the Government had a right to prosecute and that the defendant was required to defend," id. at 16, 97 S. Ct. at 21-22, 50 L. Ed. 2d at 20, and that "in such cases a trial following the Government's successful appeal of a dismissal is not barred by double jeopardy," id. at 16, 97 S. Ct. at 22, 50 L. Ed. 2d at 20.
Though the State is correct that Sanford includes language analogizing the dismissal in that case to the pretrial dismissal considered in Serfass , see id. at 16, 97 S. Ct. at 21, 50 L. Ed. 2d at 20, there are two reasons why Sanford does not control here. First, Richardson was decided eight years after Sanford , meaning that if the two opinions were in conflict, Richardson would control. The Court in Sanford issued only a brief per curiam opinion without oral argument, see id. at 16, 97 S. Ct. at 22, 50 L. Ed. 2d at 20 (Brennan & Marshall, JJ., dissenting from summary reversal and indicating that they would have set the case for oral argument); however, the Court included a more robust analysis of double jeopardy principles in its later opinion in Richardson .
Second, the result in Sanford is consistent with the principle discussed two years later in United States v. Scott . In Scott , the Court held that the State was permitted to appeal a defendant-requested dismissal of charges after jeopardy had attached. 437 U.S. at 101, 98 S. Ct. at 2198-99, 57 L. Ed. 2d at 80-81. The Court explained that
the defendant, by deliberately choosing to seek termination of the proceedings against him on a basis unrelated to factual guilt or innocence of the offense of which he is accused, suffers no injury cognizable under the Double Jeopardy Clause if the Government is permitted to appeal from such a ruling of the trial court in favor of the defendant. . [T]he Double Jeopardy Clause, which guards against Government oppression, does not relieve a defendant from the consequences of his voluntary choice.
Id. at 98-99, 98 S. Ct. at 2198, 57 L. Ed. 2d at 79. Unlike in Sanford and Scott , the dismissal here was entered unilaterally by the State rather than by a trial court granting defendant's request. Thus, this line of cases is not applicable to the facts before us.
We now move to the second element of the State's theory that jeopardy attached for the first time at defendant's second trial. As the sole support for its theory that this Court has adopted the principle that jeopardy is deemed never to have previously attached at the point that the trial court declares a mistrial, the State points to a single statement from this Court's decision in State v. Lachat , 317 N.C. 73, 343 S.E.2d 872 (1986). The State notes that we stated in Lachat that "[w]hen a mistrial is declared properly for such reasons [as a deadlocked jury], 'in legal contemplation there has been no trial.' " 317 N.C. at 82, 343 S.E.2d at 877 (quoting State v. Tyson , 138 N.C. 627, 629, 50 S.E. 456, 456 (1905) ).
The Lachat Court quoted this phrase from our 1905 decision in State v. Tyson , 138 N.C. at 629, 50 S.E. at 456. In Tyson , we held that a defendant's double jeopardy right was not violated when the jury was empaneled, the trial court declared a mistrial due to the intoxication of one of the jurors, and the defendant was re-tried and convicted. Id. We stated in Tyson that
[w]here a jury has been impaneled and charged with a capital felony, and the prisoner's life put in jeopardy, the court has no power to discharge the jury, and hold the prisoner for a second trial, except in cases of absolute necessity. Where such absolute necessity appears from the findings of the court, and in consequence thereof the jury has been discharged, then in legal contemplation there has been no trial.
Id. (citation omitted). Significantly, though we stated that there had been "no trial" in this situation, such that the defendant was not subject to double jeopardy, we did not state that, due to the mistrial, there had been "no jeopardy." To the contrary, by noting that a jury may be discharged only "in cases of absolute necessity" after "the prisoner's life [has been] put in jeopardy," we implicitly acknowledged-from the post-mistrial perspective-that the defendant in Tyson had been in jeopardy during his first trial.
Eight decades later in Lachat , this Court quoted the phrase from Tyson in a somewhat different context. In Lachat , we held that a defendant's second trial should have been barred due to former jeopardy based on the particular findings of fact and conclusions made by the trial court. Lachat , 317 N.C. at 74, 83-84, 343 S.E.2d at 872, 877. Our ruling in Lachat was a fact-specific determination that the trial court had erred in declaring a mistrial before making a proper determination on whether the jury was, in fact, hopelessly deadlocked. Id. at 84-85, 343 S.E.2d at 878. In setting out the applicable law in that case, we stated that the double jeopardy principle
is not violated where a defendant's first trial ends with a mistrial which is declared for a manifest necessity or to serve the ends of public justice. "It is axiomatic that a jury's failure to reach a verdict due to a deadlock is a 'manifest necessity' justifying the declaration of a mistrial." When a mistrial is declared properly for such reasons, "in legal contemplation there has been no trial."
State v. Lachat , 317 N.C. at 82, 343 S.E.2d at 877 (first citing and quoting State v. Simpson , 303 N.C. 439, 447, 279 S.E.2d 542, 547 (1981), then quoting Tyson , 138 N.C. at 629, 50 S.E. at 456 ). Thus, the Court opined that following a properly declared mistrial, including a mistrial declared due to a hopelessly deadlocked jury, "in legal contemplation there has been no trial." Because Lachat explicitly involved an improperly declared mistrial, any discussion of the consequences stemming from a properly declared mistrial is not conclusive on this point. More importantly, the "no trial" language quoted in Lachat again falls far short of declaring that a defendant in such a situation has not been placed in jeopardy. Nor could this Court have made such a statement, given that, just two years earlier, the Supreme Court in Richardson had embraced the doctrine that jeopardy continues following a hung jury mistrial. This Court's prior statements that "in legal contemplation there has been no trial" were made in the context of explaining why the State is permitted to retry a defendant following a properly declared mistrial, which was also the context for the U.S. Supreme Court's embrace of the continuing jeopardy doctrine in Richardson . The State contends that "[i]f a hung jury creates the legal fiction that 'there has been no trial,' then by definition a jury was never empaneled and defendant was never placed in jeopardy." But in our view the State reads this explanatory phrase from our prior opinions too expansively. Contrary to the State's view, this Court did not with those eight words adopt an exception to the longstanding rule recognized by this Court and the United States Supreme Court that jeopardy attaches when a jury is empaneled, nor did we hold that a legal fiction acts to invalidate the jeopardy that a defendant, even one who is later retried, did in fact experience at a first trial. The State argues that "the continuing jeopardy doctrine . is a slender reed upon which to base a determination that defendant's double jeopardy rights were violated." On the contrary, we conclude that this century-old statement from this Court is a "slender reed" intended only to explain the State's ability to re-try a defendant following a mistrial. This Court has not adopted an elaborate legal fiction under which jeopardy attaches when a jury is empaneled and then simply ceases to apply when the trial court declares a mistrial. This Court has not embraced the proposition proffered by the State and does not do so today. Instead, relying upon the commonsense meaning of binding Supreme Court precedents, we reaffirm that jeopardy continues following a mistrial until the occurrence of a jeopardy-terminating event.
Because we conclude that the original jeopardy continued following defendant's mistrial, we turn to the second part of our analysis and consider whether the State's subsequent dismissal of defendant's murder indictment terminated the original jeopardy, such that defendant's second trial placed him in jeopardy a second time in violation of both the federal and state constitutions.
II. Voluntary Dismissal Terminating Jeopardy
Defendant concedes that the State, under the doctrine of continuing jeopardy, could have retried him following the mistrial without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause. He argues, however, that the State's unilateral decision to enter a voluntary dismissal of the murder indictment under N.C.G.S. § 15A-931 after jeopardy had attached was an event that terminated defendant's original jeopardy, thus preventing the State from subsequently retrying him. We hold that where, as here, the State dismisses a charge under section 15A-931 after jeopardy has attached, a defendant's right to be free from double jeopardy under the federal and state constitutions is violated if the State initiates a subsequent prosecution on the same charge. Thus, we affirm the holding of the Court of Appeals that the State's dismissal of a charge under section 15A-931 is binding on the state and is tantamount to an acquittal, making it a jeopardy-terminating event for double jeopardy purposes.
North Carolina has two statutes governing the State's ability to voluntarily dismiss charges, either with or without leave to reinstate those charges. Section 15A-931 of the General Statutes ("Voluntary dismissal of criminal charges by the State.") reads as follows:
Except as provided in G.S. 20-138.4, the prosecutor may dismiss any charges stated in a criminal pleading including those deferred for prosecution by entering an oral dismissal in open court before or during the trial, or by filing a written dismissal with the clerk at any time. The clerk must record the dismissal entered by the prosecutor and note in the case file whether a jury has been impaneled or evidence has been introduced.
N.C.G.S. § 15A-931(a) (2017).
By contrast, N.C.G.S. § 15A-932 ("Dismissal with leave when defendant fails to appear and cannot be readily found or pursuant to a deferred prosecution agreement.") allows a prosecutor to dismiss charges with leave to reinstate them under specific circumstances. Under section 15A-932,
The prosecutor may enter a dismissal with leave for nonappearance when a defendant:
(1) Cannot be readily found to be served with an order for arrest after the grand jury had indicted him; or
(2) Fails to appear at a criminal proceeding at which his attendance is required, and the prosecutor believes the defendant cannot be readily found.
N.C.G.S. § 15A-932(a) (2017) and
The prosecutor may enter a dismissal with leave pursuant to a deferred prosecution agreement entered into in accordance with the provisions of Article 82 of this Chapter.
Id. § 15A-932(a1). A prosecutor may reinstate charges dismissed with leave under these provisions upon apprehension of a defendant who previously could not be found or if a defendant fails to comply with the terms of a deferred prosecution agreement. Id. § 15A-932(d), (e).
Section 15A-932 establishes a few specifically enumerated circumstances in which the State may dismiss a charge with leave to refile, such that a dismissal under this statute does not necessarily contemplate the end of the prosecution. All other voluntary dismissals entered by the State are governed by section 15A-931. In State v. Lamb , 321 N.C. 633, 641, 365 S.E.2d 600, 604 (1988) we contrasted the effect of these two provisions, nothing that section 15A-931 provides "a simple and final dismissal which terminates the criminal proceedings under that indictment" (citing N.C.G.S. § 15A-931 official cmt.) while a dismissal under section 15A-932 "results in removal of the case from the court's docket, but the criminal proceeding under the indictment is not terminated." (emphasis in original). Before a defendant has been tried, "[s]ection 15A-931 does not bar the bringing of the same charges upon a new indictment," id. but, even in a pre-attachment context, the key characteristic of a dismissal entered under 15A-931 is its finality. In the context of an analysis of the now-repealed Speedy Trial Act in Lamb , we noted that the finality provided by the statute precluded consideration of any time that accrued between the time when a first indictment was dismissed under section 15A-931 and a new indictment was secured for purposes of a statutory speedy trial claim; by contrast, no such consequence resulted from a section 15A-932 dismissal.
It appears that the legislature contemplated the possibility that a dismissal under section 15A-931 might have double jeopardy implications and, further, that the State might enter a voluntary dismissal sometime other than during the middle of a trial. Section 15A-931(a) dictates that "[t]he clerk must record the dismissal entered by the prosecutor and note in the case file whether a jury has been impaneled or evidence has been introduced " and directs that the State may dismiss a charge "by entering an oral dismissal in open court before or during the trial, or by filing a written dismissal with the clerk at any time ." (Emphases added). The State suggested at oral argument that the statutory language contemplating the attachment of jeopardy was intended only to ward against the double jeopardy implications of a voluntary dismissal entered by the State mid-trial . But this contention is undermined by the specific language in the statute authorizing entry of a dismissal before a trial, during a trial, or at any time .
While the text of section 15A-931 fully supports the conclusion that the legislature intended a dismissal under this section to have such a degree of finality that double jeopardy protections would come into play, this reading finds further support in the official commentary to the statute. See State v. Jones , - N.C. -, 819 S.E.2d 340, 344 (2018) ("The commentary to a statutory provision can be helpful in some cases in discerning legislative intent." (quoting Parsons v. Jefferson-Pilot Corp. , 333 N.C. 420, 425, 426 S.E.2d 685, 689 (1993) ); State v. Williams , 315 N.C. 310, 327, 338 S.E.2d 75, 85 (1986) ("Although the official commentary was not drafted by the General Assembly, we believe its inclusion in The Criminal Procedure Act is some indication that the legislature expected and intended for the courts to turn to it for guidance when construing the Act.").
The Criminal Code Commission provided the following commentary to section 15A-931 :
The case of Klopfer v. North Carolina , 386 U.S. 213 [87 S.Ct. 988, 18 L.Ed.2d 1], held in 1967, that our system of "nol pros" was unconstitutional when it left charges pending against a defendant and he was denied a speedy trial. Thus the Commission here provides for a simple and final dismissal by the solicitor. No approval by the court is required, on the basis that it is the responsibility of the solicitor, as an elected official, to determine how to proceed with regard to pending charges. This section does not itself bar the bringing of new charges. That would be prevented if there were a statute of limitations which had run, or if jeopardy had attached when the first charges were dismissed.
N.C.G.S. § 15A-931 (2017) (official cmt.) (emphasis added). The explicit statement in the commentary that the bringing of new charges "would be prevented . if jeopardy had attached when the first charges were dismissed," id. , provides further insight into the legislature's intent for a 15A-931 dismissal. This commentary suggests that such a dismissal would be viewed as a jeopardy-terminating event for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause.
In reaching its conclusion that the State's dismissal of defendant's murder charge was a terminating event that prevented him from being retried, the Court of Appeals "f[ou]nd further guidance from [this] Court's explanation and application of the 'State's election' rule." State v. Courtney , - N.C.App. -, 817 S.E.2d 412, 420 (2018) (citing State v. Jones , 317 N.C. 487, 346 S.E.2d 657 (1986) ). Like the panel below, we also find the rule discussed in Jones to be instructive here. In Jones , this Court reviewed the case of a defendant whose indictment arguably was sufficient to charge him with first-degree rape but who was arraigned only on the charge of second-degree rape. Jones , 317 N.C. at 491-92, 346 S.E.2d at 659-60. No discussion at all of a first-degree rape charge occurred until after the close of all evidence, when the prosecutor proposed an instruction on first-degree rape. Jones , 317 N.C. at 491, 346 S.E.2d at 659. Jones was ultimately convicted of first-degree rape, id. , and appealed his conviction to this Court. In our decision vacating defendant's conviction for first-degree rape, we held that
by unequivocally arraigning the defendant on second-degree rape and by failing thereafter to give any notice whatsoever , prior to the jury being impaneled and jeopardy attaching, of an intent instead to pursue a conviction for first-degree rape arguably supported by the short-form indictment, the State made a binding election not to pursue the greater degree of the offense, and such election was tantamount to an acquittal of first-degree rape.
Id. at 494, 346 S.E.2d at 661 (emphasis in original).
While the State correctly notes that this case presents a different circumstance from that detailed in Jones , it does not adequately explain why a prosecutor's unilateral, post-attachment decision to terminate the entire prosecution should be less binding on the State than its post-attachment decision to pursue a lesser charge. By making the unilateral choice to enter a final dismissal of defendant's murder charge after jeopardy had attached, the State made a binding decision not to retry the case. Thus, we conclude that the State's post-attachment dismissal of defendant's indictment was tantamount to, or the functional equivalent of, an acquittal, which terminated the original jeopardy that had continued following the declaration of a hung jury mistrial in defendant's case.
Conclusion
At his first trial, defendant was unquestionably placed in jeopardy, which continued after his first trial ended with a hung jury mistrial. As explained by the continuing jeopardy doctrine, the mistrial was not a terminating event that deprived the State of the opportunity to retry defendant. Rather, as defendant acknowledges, the State at that time could have tried defendant again on the existing charge without violating his double jeopardy rights. Instead of exercising that opportunity to retry defendant, the State entered a final dismissal of the charge, unilaterally and irrevocably terminating the prosecution and, with it, defendant's original jeopardy. Under the Double Jeopardy Clause, the State was then barred from retrying defendant for the same crime.
Because defendant's jeopardy remained attached following the mistrial declaration in his first trial and was terminated when the State subsequently entered a dismissal of the charge under N.C.G.S. § 15A-931, we conclude that defendant's second prosecution was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause and that the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion to dismiss his 2015 murder indictment on double jeopardy grounds. Thus, we affirm the Court of Appeals' decision vacating defendant's murder conviction.
AFFIRMED.
Because we recognize that the State may proceed with a retrial when a defendant secures the relief of a new trial after an original conviction is vacated on appeal, the dissent's assertion that our holding "would also apply to cases reversed on appeal" is incorrect. Our holding is limited to the facts presented here.
At oral argument, counsel for the State instead argued that jeopardy "unattaches," a phenomenon that the State specifically disclaims in its brief. Compare New Brief for the State at 8, State v. Courtney , No. 160PA18 (N.C. November 21, 2018) ("Although the court below believed the State was contending jeopardy 'unattached' with the mistrial, the State's actual argument is that, based on case law from this Court, the mistrial created the legal fiction that jeopardy never attached in the first place.") (citation and footnote omitted) (emphasis in original) with Oral Argument at 55:08-55:18, 57:36-57:51, State v. Courtney , No. 160PA18 (N.C. May 15, 2019) ("I would ask this Court to look at this Court's holding in State v. Lachat , which found that when there is a mistrial, jeopardy unattaches."; "After a hung jury, the jeopardy in that situation unattaches and then when the State made this dismissal, the State was in a pretrial procedure at that point, and therefore the State could bring back these charges and retry the defendant.") (emphases added). While we primarily focus here on the State's contention in its brief that jeopardy never attached, we also find no legal support for its alternative formulation that jeopardy "unattaches" following a hung jury mistrial. Both arguments-that jeopardy never attached and that jeopardy unattached-are foreclosed by the continuing jeopardy principle embraced by the United States Supreme Court in Richardson .
The dissenting justice in Richardson also acknowledged the Court's adoption of the continuing jeopardy principle. Writing in dissent in Richardson , Justice Brennan argued that the majority's approach "improperly ignores the realities of the defendant's situation and relies instead on a formalistic concept of 'continuing jeopardy .' " Richardson , 468 U.S. at 327, 104 S. Ct. at 3087, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 252 (Brennan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (emphasis added). See also Yeager v. United States , 557 U.S. 110, 129, 129 S. Ct. 2360, 2372, 174 L. Ed. 2d 78, 94 (2009) (Scalia, J., dissenting) ("This Court has extended the protections of the Double Jeopardy Clause by holding that jeopardy attaches earlier: at the time a jury is empanelled and sworn..... [D]ischarge of a deadlocked jury does not 'terminat[e] the original jeopardy.' Under this continuing-jeopardy principle , retrial after a jury has failed to reach a verdict is not a new trial but part of the same proceeding.") (emphasis added) (footnote omitted) (citations omitted).
Lachat was not decided under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution but rather "on adequate and independent grounds of North Carolina law." 317 N.C. at 77, 343 S.E.2d at 874.
In its brief, the State also references State v. Sanders , 347 N.C. 587, 496 S.E.2d 568 (1998), the most recent case from this Court to quote Tyson 's "no trial" language, though as with Lachat , it provides no analysis of the case. In Sanders , we upheld the propriety of a trial court's declaration of a mistrial due to the "manifest necessity" of jury misconduct in a sentencing proceeding, such that the defendant's double jeopardy rights would not be violated by a subsequent sentencing proceeding. Id. at 599-601, 496 S.E.2d at 576-77. In setting forth the reasoning for our conclusion, we discussed the right of a defendant to be free from double jeopardy and noted that this right is not violated when a mistrial is declared due to manifest necessity. Id. at 599, 496 S.E.2d at 576. Then we stated that "[w]hen a mistrial has been declared properly, 'in legal contemplation there has been no trial.' " Id. (quoting Tyson, 138 N.C. at 629, 50 S.E. at 456 ). As is the case with Tyson and Lachat , Sanders includes no statement that jeopardy is deemed, following the mistrial, never to have attached in the first place. Like Lachat , Sanders also post-dated Richardson , which would have foreclosed any holding that jeopardy did not remain attached following a mistrial.
Although the State contends this Court already adopted its proffered legal fiction as a holding in Lachat , it also seeks to highlight the usefulness of legal fictions by analogizing this situation before us to other situations where legal fictions have been employed. In a footnote on legal fictions in its brief, the State contends that "[h]ere, resetting the proceedings after a hung jury mistrial to pre-trial status is not all that different than other legal fictions such as nunc pro tunc orders and the relation-back doctrine." One of the cases the State cites in this discussion is Costello v. Immigration & Naturalization Serv. , 376 U.S. 120, 130, 84 S. Ct. 580, 586, 11 L. Ed. 2d 559, 565 (1964). But Costello declined to apply the relation-back doctrine in the manner urged by the government in that case and disparaged the legal fiction concept in the process. Id. at 130, 84 S. Ct. at 586, 11 L. Ed. 2d 559, 565-66 ("The relation-back concept is a legal fiction at best, and even the respondent concedes that it cannot be 'mechanically applied.' . This Court declined to apply the fiction in a deportation context in [a prior] case, and we decline to do so now."). The Court further stated that, "[i]n this area of the law, involving as it may the equivalent of banishment or exile, we do well to eschew technicalities and fictions and to deal instead with realities." Id. at 131, 84 S. Ct. at 587, 11 L. Ed. 2d at 566.
The statute referenced herein applies only to implied-consent and impaired driving with license revoked offenses and requires that a voluntary dismissal by the State be accompanied by detailed reasons and other information related to the case. N.C.G.S. § 20-138.4(a)(1), (b) (2017).
In Lamb , the State entered a pretrial dismissal of the indictment "[w]ith [l]eave [p]ending the completion of the investigation." 321 N.C. at 635, 365 S.E.2d at 601. However, because none of the circumstances described in section 15A-932 actually occurred, we concluded that the "with leave" language was merely surplusage and that the dismissal in fact was entered under section 15A-931. Id. at 642, 365 S.E.2d at 604-05.
The Jones Court did not reach the issue of whether or not the indictment, which contained a sufficient description of first-degree rape in the body of the indictment but also contained a caption and statutory citation that both referenced second-degree rape, would have been sufficient to charge first-degree rape absent the State's post-jeopardy election. 317 N.C. at 493, 346 S.E.2d at 660-61.
In reaching our conclusion in Jones that the State had made a binding election to pursue only the charge of second-degree rape, we also noted that the State had "that charge [for second-degree rape] entered of record in the clerk's minutes of arraignment." Id. at 493, 346 S.E.2d at 660-61.
Of course there may have been crimes other than lesser included offenses of murder with which defendant could have been charged arising from the same incident. See State v. Wilson , 338 N.C. 244, 261, 449 S.E.2d 391, 401 (1994).