Court dismisses appeal from journalists arrested during Asheville protest

The North Carolina Court of Appeals has dismissed an appeal from two journalists arrested and convicted of trespassing while covering an Asheville protest in 2021.

“Due to deficiencies in the record, we are unable to discern on appeal whether the superior court had jurisdiction,” wrote Judge Jeff Carpenter in an unpublished opinion issued Wednesday.

Matilda Bliss and Melissa Coit worked as reporters for the left-of-center Asheville Blade when they covered Asheville police activity on Christmas night in 2021. Bliss and Coit recorded officers dismantling tents and asking protesters to leave a downtown park after it closed at 10 p.m.

The two reporters were among six people charged that night, according to the Appeals Court opinion. More than a dozen people eventually faced charges connected to protests that had started on Dec. 19.

Bliss and Coit fought the charges in both District Court and Superior Court. In June 2023, after a weeklong trial, a jury convicted both journalists. A trial judge ordered them to pay a $100 fine and court costs.

The journalists’ appeal focused on alleged violations of their First Amendment rights. Yet Carpenter and fellow Judges Julee Flood and Michael Stading did not reach that issue.

“Although the record provides, in the ‘Statement of Organization of the Trial Court,’ that Defendants were first tried and convicted in district court before being convicted of second-degree trespass in superior court, there is no supporting documentation in the record,” Carpenter wrote. “Indeed, the record fails to establish that Defendants were tried in district court on the charges of second-degree trespass giving rise to derivative jurisdiction in superior court. Accordingly, because we are unable to verify jurisdiction, we dismiss Defendants’ appeal.”

“With a few exceptions, district courts have exclusive jurisdiction over all misdemeanors,” Carpenter explained. “Indeed, absent a Presentment by the Grand Jury, which is not included in the record, the superior court cannot exercise jurisdiction over a misdemeanor ‘unless [the defendant] is first tried and convicted for such misdemeanor in the inferior court and appeals to the superior court from the sentence pronounced against him by the inferior court on his conviction for such misdemeanor.’”

Bliss and Coit had the responsibility to include the District Court proceedings in the appeal documents, Carpenter added. “We emphasize that it is the defendant’s responsibility ‘to see that the record on appeal [is] properly compiled,’” he wrote.

“Specifically, for a criminal case originating in district court, the record on appeal must include the judgment in district court and the entries showing an appeal of that judgment to superior court. If ‘the record is silent and the appellate court is unable to determine whether the court below had jurisdiction, the appeal should be dismissed,’” Carpenter wrote.

“Specifically, the record lacks: a charging instrument, the district court judgment, and the notice of appeal to superior court,” he added.

Bliss and Coit noted in the record that they were tried and convicted after a bench trial before District Judge Calvin Hill in April 2023. “But without the necessary records and information from the district court proceedings, we are unable to determine whether the superior court had jurisdiction,” Carpenter wrote.

“In sum, the record is silent on how this case reached superior court and also fails to disclose whether this case was properly before the superior court,” he added. “Accordingly, we are unable to discern whether the superior court had jurisdiction, and we dismiss Defendants’ appeal.”

“The cold record before us lacks the necessary information for us to discern whether the superior court had jurisdiction,” Carpenter concluded.