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Drunk and Disorderly: A Reminder Ahead of the Peak Sports Season

February tends to be a very popular month for sports. The Super Bowl is around the corner, NCAA basketball is heating up with conference games, we are deep into the NBA season, and even the MLB is gearing up for spring training. Fans show their support for and allegiance to teams while watching games at home, in the arena, or at a local bar. Celebration often leads to drinks, drinks occasionally lead to questionable behavior, and questionable behavior frequently leads to consequences. Although it is not a crime in North Carolina to be drunk in public, it is a criminal offense to be drunk and disorderly in public.

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State v. Dew: Multiple Assault Offenses and Distinct Interruptions

Happy New Year, everyone.

Around this time last year, I blogged about the decades-long question surrounding assault in our state: when do multiple physical acts constitute one continuing assault offense and when do they constitute more than one assault offense?

At the time the blog was written, the Court of Appeals had analyzed this issue several times, but the question had never reached our state Supreme Court. The Court has since decided State v. Dew, ___ N.C. ___, 2021-NCSC-124 (Oct. 29, 2021), building on the Court of Appeals’ jurisprudence and offering clarification on the “distinct interruption” approach used in deciding these cases. This post reviews the Court’s decision in Dew and the implications it has on physical assault cases moving forward.

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2021 Criminal Legislative Summaries Now Available

In this earlier blog post, I provided a then-current overview of criminal law and related legislation enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly this legislative session. Since then, there have been a few more bills enacted that affect criminal law, criminal procedure, and motor vehicle law, as well as some amendments to previously enacted bills.

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Cyberstalking via Electronic Tracking Device

Most of us, at one point or another, have dedicated a day of the week to running our personal errands. That day might consist of going to the grocery store, shopping at the mall, or grabbing coffee with a friend. Now imagine on the way home from any of those activities, you get this notification on your iPhone:

You don’t own an AirTag or probably don’t even know what it is, but it doesn’t take long for you to realize that you’re being tracked. Recently, this has happened to unsuspecting people in Virginia and Arkansas.

While there have not yet been any reported instances in North Carolina, our cyberstalking statute prohibits this type of nonconsensual tracking. This post explores the cyberstalking offense as proscribed by G.S. 14-196.3.

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An Overview of 2021 Criminal Law Legislation

Each year the School of Government summarizes legislation enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly affecting criminal law and procedure and motor vehicle laws. We also explore selected legislation in more depth on this blog. Most criminal law legislation has an effective date of December 1 to allow the courts to prepare for the changes. What follows is a brief summary of the criminal law and related legislation with earlier effective dates enacted thus far during the 2021 legislative session. It isn’t everything the legislature has done, and by no means is it everything you need to know.

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New Publication on Computer Crimes

I’m happy to announce that I recently finished an Administration of Justice Bulletin about computer-related crimes. It is a substantial expansion of my recent blog posts on the subject, providing an overview of how the statutes have been applied and some criminal scenarios that may fall within their purview. The bulletin is available here as … Read more