Issue

Motion to disqualify district attorney's office—actual conflict of interest—victim's role as county manager irrelevant

Summary

In a trial for cyberstalking and making harassing phone calls, the trial court improperly granted defendant's motion to disqualify the entire district attorney's (DA's) office from prosecuting him where defendant argued that the victim's position as the county manager–whose duties included superintending county courthouses and proposing the county's annual budget, which included expenses for the DA's office–created a conflict of interest. In the context of criminal prosecutions, an "actual conflict" only exists if a prosecutor in a criminal case once represented the defendant in another matter and, by virtue of that attorney-client relationship, obtained confidential information that could be used to the defendant's detriment at trial. Thus, the trial court's office-wide disqualification of the DA's office was improper where defendant did not offer evidence of such a conflict with the DA or with any of the twenty assistant DAs serving under him.

Summary from the North Carolina Reports digest (official subject index). Read the opinion →