If you intend to burn your property, you are required to provide notice to owners of neighboring lands and control the fire. If a prosecutor can show you intended to damage the property, you can face a Class I felony charge. If your actions cause someone serious injuries, you face a Class A1 misdemeanor or Class F felony. Following many property crime convictions, judges have discretion in the length and type of penalty you face, which is why it is essential to work with an experienced property crimes defense lawyer.
North Carolina uses sentencing charts for both misdemeanors and felonies, and the judge can order you to serve a sentence within the minimum and maximum prescribed by the chart.
By having a Charlotte criminal defense attorney defend you, you improve your chance of avoiding a conviction, as well as mitigating the consequences of a conviction, such as an active jail sentence like those listed below:.
Class H Felony: Between three and 24 months in prison, fines, and collateral consequences. Class 1 Misdemeanor: Between one and days in jail, fines, and collateral consequences. Class 2 Misdemeanor: between one and 60 days in jail, fines, and collateral consequences.
A judge can sentence you to probation, community service, pay restitution, and other penalties. You might also find that a conviction for property damage, even a misdemeanor, can make it challenging to maintain employment, be approved for rental housing, and go to school.
The consequences of a conviction can make it very hard to move forward in life, even after you complete your sentence. Our team is highly experienced in defending against property crimes. The prosecution only needs probable cause to move forward with charges. But for a judge or jury to convict you, the prosecution must prove you committed the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.
This is a high standard. We take a close look at the facts of your case. The small details matter. We also analyze your case for unlawful conduct by the police. We might find evidence that you were subject to an unlawful search and seizure.
We will file a pre-trial motion to suppress any evidence that was unlawfully obtained. We also will file pre-trial motions to have irrelevant or prejudicial evidence ruled inadmissible.
We might be able to have the charges dropped or reduced, but it depends on the circumstances. We might be able to show the prosecutor that they lack sufficient evidence to prove you committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. For example, a lack of intent might be a defense. Any damage to the property might have been accidental. If the charges move forward, we craft a strong defense to present at trial. For many property crimes, willful intent is necessary.
We may be able to show the court that the property was damaged by accident. But, family law attorneys in North Carolina, who also provide legal representation for allegations of criminal charges for domestic violence , understand the implications to each type of legal proceeding. The destruction of property is all-too-often intended as a way to hurt another person, an ex-spouse, for some retaliatory and illegal purpose.
Everyone has seen the commercials, where a cheating spouse comes home, only to see everything they own on the front lawn, smashed to pieces or set on fire. That may seem funny, until you find yourself arrested and looking at Class 1 misdemeanor charges in criminal court or sitting in Family Court Civil Court with a show-cause Order for contempt.
As such, both experienced criminal defense lawyers Charlotte NC and family law attorneys, as part of legal representation, counsel clients not to act out and not give into anger. That includes avoiding both physical confrontations and damaging or destroying the belongings of another.
Other criminal charges may have consequences to both a civil case or criminal case allegations of criminal charges involving allegations of assault, assault and battery, Interfering with emergency communication or other misdemeanor assaults, affrays, batteries, simple and aggravated.
As you might imagine, if something gets broken during such an assault, affray, and assault and battery, that may also give rise to charges involving Injury to Personal Property in North Carolina. A1 misdemeanor charges NC aggravated misdemeanors carry a maximum jail sentence of days in North Carolina. There may be other requirements in judgments for misdemeanor or felony criminal charges including mental health treatment, Supervised Probation, EM Electronic Monitoring, House Arrest, Intensive Probation, Court Costs, Fines, Community Service and restitution to the victim.
For the purpose of this section, the term "woodland" includes timber and cutover land and all second growth stands on areas that were once cultivated. Fire escaping from the brush, grass, or other material while burning shall be prima facie evidence of violation of this provision.
Burning or otherwise destroying crops in the field. Any person who shall willfully burn or destroy any other person's lawfully grown crop, pasture, or provender shall be punished as follows:. Injuries to dams and water channels of mills and factories. If any person shall cut away, destroy or otherwise injure any dam, or part thereof, or shall obstruct or damage any race, canal or other water channel erected, opened, used or constructed for the purpose of furnishing water for the operation of any mill, factory or machine works, or for the escape of water therefrom, he shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
Injuring houses, churches, fences and walls. If any person shall, by any other means than burning or attempting to burn, unlawfully and willfully demolish, destroy, deface, injure or damage any of the houses or other buildings mentioned in Article 15 Arson and Other Burnings of this Chapter; or shall by any other means than burning or attempting to burn unlawfully and willfully demolish, pull down, destroy, deface, damage or injure any church, uninhabited house, outhouse or other house or building not mentioned in such article; or shall unlawfully and willfully burn, destroy, pull down, injure or remove any fence, wall or other enclosure, or any part thereof, surrounding or about any yard, garden, cultivated field or pasture, or about any church or graveyard, or about any factory or other house in which machinery is used, every person so offending shall be punished as follows:.
Unlawful posting of advertisements. Any person who in any manner paints, prints, places, or affixes, or causes to be painted, printed, placed, or affixed, any business or commercial advertisement on or to any stone, tree, fence, stump, pole, automobile, building, or other object, which is the property of another without first obtaining the written consent of such owner thereof, or who in any manner paints, prints, places, puts, or affixes, or causes to be painted, printed, placed, or affixed, such an advertisement on or to any stone, tree, fence, stump, pole, mile-board, milestone, danger-sign, danger-signal, guide-sign, guide-post, automobile, building or other object within the limits of a public highway, shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.
If any person shall unlawfully and willfully demolish, destroy, break, tear down, injure or damage any bridge across any of the creeks or rivers or other streams in the State, he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. Removing, altering or defacing landmarks. If any person, firm or corporation shall knowingly remove, alter or deface any landmark in anywise whatsoever, or shall knowingly cause such removal, alteration or defacement to be done, such person, firm or corporation shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
This section shall not apply to landmarks, such as creeks and other small streams, which the interest of agriculture may require to be altered or turned from their channels, nor to such persons, firms or corporations as own the fee simple in the lands on both sides of the lines designated by the landmarks removed, altered or defaced.
Nor shall this section apply to those adjoining landowners who may by agreement remove, alter or deface landmarks in which they alone are interested. Defacing or desecrating grave sites. Any other violation of this section is a Class 1 misdemeanor. In passing sentence, the court shall consider the appropriateness of restitution or reparation as a condition of probation under G.
Desecrating, plowing over or covering up graves; desecrating human remains. This subdivision shall not apply to the ordinary maintenance and care of a cemetery. Interfering with gas, electric, and steam appliances or meters; penalties. However, if there has been a written request to remove the load management device, equipment, or system to the electric supplier and the electric supplier has not removed the device within two working days, there is no violation of this section.
Injuring fixtures and other property of gas companies; civil liability. If any person shall willfully, wantonly or maliciously remove, obstruct, injure or destroy any part of the plant, machinery, fixtures, structures or buildings, or anything appertaining to the works of any gas company, or shall use, tamper or interfere with the same, he shall be deemed guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.
Such person shall also forfeit and pay to the company so injured, to be sued for and recovered in a civil action, double the amount of the damages sustained by any such injury. Tampering with engines and boilers. If any person shall willfully turn out water from any boiler or turn the bolts of any engine or boiler, or meddle or tamper with such boiler or engine, or any other machinery in connection with any boiler or engine, causing loss, damage, danger or delay to the owner in the prosecution of his work, he shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
Injuring wires and other fixtures of telephone, telegraph, and electric-power companies. If any person shall willfully injure, destroy or pull down any telegraph, telephone, cable telecommunications, or electric-power-transmission pedestal or pole, or any telegraph, telephone, cable telecommunications, or electric power line, wire or fiber insulator, power supply, transformer, transmission or other apparatus, equipment or fixture used in the transmission of telegraph, telephone, cable telecommunications, or electrical power service or any equipment related to wireless communications regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, that person shall be guilty of a Class I Felony.
Unauthorized connections with telephone or telegraph.
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