MORTON CONVICTION APPEALED TO CIRCUIT COURT

December 3, 2018 Dick Mangrum
The attorney for a North Carolina woman convicted in a Seneca criminal court proceeding will ask the 10th circuit court at Walhalla to set aside his client’s conviction and to dismiss the charge against her. A Seneca jury last month found Tori Diana Morton guilty of simple possession of marijuana while a passenger in a car fired on by the police fired on during a drug sting in 2015. Morton was not hurt, but the car driver, Zachary Hammond, was killed. After a four-day trial November 1, Judge Danny Singleton sentenced Morton to 30 days or a fine of $615 dollars. In his appeal, Morton attorney Keith Denny cites six issues—including “failure to exclude hearsay statements and writings” and “failure to provide jury instruction for the State’s failure to call a necessary witness.”