Recent blog posts

The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president of Cuba, for his role in ordering the 1996 downing of two planes. The planes were flown by […]

Editor’s note: This post first appeared on the School of Government’s blog directed at civil law and procedure. It is cross-posted here because the content is also pertient for prosecutors, […]

This post summarizes criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during April of 2026. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. […]

A colleague recently came into my office carrying Volume 3 of the General Statutes of North Carolina Annotated by Lexis Nexis (what we attorneys call “the green book”) with a […]

We last addressed the 2023 trial of Alex Murdaugh, the South Carolina lawyer convicted of murdering his wife and son, in February of 2024 (although Shea subsequently reviewed a nonfiction […]

Some guilty pleas are “open,” where the defendant pleads guilty to agreed-upon charges without any promises from the State about the ultimate sentence. Other pleas include an arrangement as to […]

Child pornography (also known as child sexual abuse material, “CSAM”) is a category of speech that is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, so long […]

This post summarizes the published opinions in criminal cases issued by the North Carolina Court of Appeals on May 6, 2026. The trial court properly revoked the defendant’s probation for […]

Just over a week ago, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted in the Eastern District of North Carolina. This press release from the United States Department of Justice explains […]

More than thirty years before the United States Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), determined that the Sixth Amendment guarantee of appointed counsel for indigent defendants […]