Recent blog posts

I was on vacation last week. I spent part of my time reading Carlos Barragan’s book The Yahoo Boys. Barragan is a Spanish journalist. His mother, a successful dentist, fell […]

Kim Kardashian’s Calabasas mansion was broken into on Sunday, and police have arrested a suspect, per this story from NBC and USA Today. Officers with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s […]

Today’s post addresses a small (and admittedly mundane) thing that trips people up from time to time. What happens when an appealed probationary sentence comes back to the trial court […]

A defendant’s simultaneous possession of multiple guns will generally support only one conviction for possession of a firearm by a felon. In State v. Phelps, No. COA25-934 (June 3, 2026), […]

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on August 5, 2026. No Fourth Amendment violation where law enforcement seized bloody shirt from […]

Last week’s News Roundup noted the story of a Charlotte-Mecklenburg officer accused of illegally accessing Flock camera data. According to these reports, at least 20 law enforcement officers in Georgia […]

Jeff wrote last week about several provisions in the 2026 Appropriations Act that might be of interest to readers. This week, I’m back with one more: Section 16.19 of the […]

A new Administration of Justice Bulletin on Rebuttable Presumptions Against Pretrial Release is now available. I previously blogged about these types of presumptions here, and this bulletin expands on the […]

We are excited to announce the publication of a new bulletin in our Administration of Justice series: “Initial Appearances before North Carolina Magistrates.” Special thanks to my colleagues Brittany Bromell […]

Last week, several people sent me news articles about the prosecution of Samuel Tunick, who was detained by federal agents while re-entering the United States after a trip abroad. During […]