State v. Abernathy

The defendant assigns as error the fact that the trial judge accepted pleas of guilty through the defendant’s privately employed counsel and did not inquire of the defendant personally if his pleas were voluntarily made, if he understood what he was doing, and if he authorized his counsel to enter the pleas in his behalf.

Chief Justice Parker in State v. Woody, 271 N.C. 544, 548, 157 S.E. 2d 108, stated:

“This Court would find itself under an avalanche of frivolous appeals from criminal convictions if it were to allow a defendant to attack for the first time in an appellate court his own plea…