State v. Gardner

BRANCH, Chief Justice.

Defendant assigns as error the failure of the trial judge, ex mero motu, to find as a mitigating factor that prior to arrest, or at an early stage of the criminal process, the defendant voluntarily acknowledged wrongdoing in connection with the offense to a law enforcement officer. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1340.4(a)(2)(l) (1983).

We considered a question similar to the one here presented in State v. Jones, 309 N.C. 214, 306 S.E. 2d 451 (1983). There, in finding that the trial court erred in failing to find one of the statutory mitigating factors listed in N.C. Gen. Stat. §…