The North Carolina Court of Appeals has remanded a former Durham man’s case to Alamance County to correct a clerical error on the defendant’s sentencing sheet.
The defendant in the case, Timothy Lee Hinton, 59, white, male, formerly of 100 Stratford Lakes Drive, Durham, was convicted in Alamance County superior court in May 2025 of three counts of indecent liberties with a child.
On appeal, Hinton argued unsuccessfully that he received ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorney had failed to object to the admission of recorded forensic interviews with the two victims at his trial in Alamance County. (The case background lists the victims by the initials T.A. and M.A. to protect the juveniles’ identities.)
The Alamance County court file doesn’t specify where the crimes occurred; documents included in the file show that Hinton was charged by the Alamance County sheriff’s department and taken into custody by the Durham police department on September 21, 2022.
Hinton also argued unsuccessfully on appeal that his attorney, Catherine Peebles of Raleigh, had erred in failing to object to a “jury instruction that the video could be considered as substantive evidence.”
The Appeals Court disagreed, concluding that Hinton had failed to show how Peebles’ conduct fell “below an objective standard of reasonableness,” or that it prejudiced the outcome of his trial in Alamance County.
“Prejudice is established by showing that there is a reasonable probability that, but for [the] counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different,” judge Christopher Freeman wrote in his opinion for the Appeals Court, which was issued last week.
The Appeals Court, however, agreed with Hinton’s assertion that the case should be remanded to Alamance County to correct an error on his sentencing sheet.
A visiting superior court judge from Union County, Matthew B. Smith, announced at the conclusion of Hinton’s trial in Alamance County superior court that the defendant would be sentenced to three consecutive sentences, each ranging from a minimum of one year and four months to a maximum of two years and five months.
But a box on Hinton’s sentencing sheet was inadvertently left unchecked, creating a discrepancy between what was announced in open court and what appears on the sentencing sheet.
The Appeals Court remanded the case to Alamance County in order to correct the error on the sentencing sheet.
Judges Julee Flood and Valerie Zachary concurred with Free-man’s opinion for the Appeals Court.
Hinton is currently incarcerated at Orange Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison for men in Hillsborough, according to the state Department of Adult Corrections.
