A UNC School of Government Blog
Shea Denning Happy New Year, everyone.
A few months ago, I blogged about the continuing phenomenon of impaired driving, the fatalities resulting from crashes involving impaired drivers, and recommendations from experts about how to reduce the incidence of impaired driving. Some of the feedback I received indicated that talk of solutions ought to be preceded by common agreement on the nature of the problem.
The United States Supreme Court’s 2019 term is well underway, and several criminal law cases are on the docket. Listed below are the principal criminal law cases currently before the court, with a link to the docket entry for each case, followed by the Questions Presented.
This post summarizes opinions issued by the Court of Appeals of North Carolina on November 19, 2019. Trial court did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained from a search of the defendant’s purse when officer testified that the defendant voluntarily consented to the search, notwithstanding contradictory testimony from the defendant. State … Read more
Legislation passed this fall allows for more remote license renewals, supports the study of futuristic license plates, exempts drivers and passengers in some open-air autocycles from helmet requirements, and makes it easier to buy an alcoholic beverage the day after your twenty-first birthday.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently released this report on fatal motor vehicle crashes in 2018. The number of traffic fatalities nationwide decreased modestly last year as did the number of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities. In North Carolina, the number of fatalities in both categories modestly increased in 2018. In the aggregate, neither the national nor the state numbers reflect much change in the fatality rate associated with traffic crashes generally or impaired driving-related crashes specifically. While there were precipitous declines in alcohol-impaired driving fatalities from 1982 to 2000, since that time the number of impaired driving-related fatalities has remained rather constant. A similar plateau exists for all types of traffic fatalities, for which the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled has remained relatively static for the last decade. This flat trend line has safety advocates wondering what they can do, particularly in the impaired driving context, to push the trend line toward zero.
My colleagues and I traversed the state last week speaking at fall conferences for various associations. One conference staple is the criminal law case update. I created a criminal law quiz for one such session, and I thought readers might want to try their hand at answering ten criminal law questions recently addressed by the appellate courts. So, here is your quiz:
Brittany Bryant was charged with misdemeanor larceny for allegedly stealing acne toner and towelettes valued at $14.94 of from a Wal-Mart in Raleigh. The prosecutor agreed to reduce the charge from larceny to shoplifting. She accomplished that in a manner familiar to district court practitioners. She struck through the charging language of the citation, wrote in “shoplifting,” and initialed and dated the document. Bryant then pled guilty to shoplifting by concealing merchandise and was sentenced.
Bryant later sought to set aside her conviction on the basis that the prosecutor improperly amended the citation. The court of appeals agreed, holding in State v. Bryant, ___ N.C. App. ___ (October 1, 2019), that the amendment was improper and deprived the district court of jurisdiction.
Bryant has left many wondering how misdemeanor charges may be amended to charge different, and less serious, offenses without subjecting the convictions to collateral attack.
The federal government wants judges to know more about masking. What is it, and what do judges need to know?
While I was finishing up my post last Wednesday on Senate Bill 682 (the bill implementing the 2018 constitutional amendments expanding victims’ rights), the Governor was signing that bill into law. In the week since S.L. 2019-216 was chaptered, I’ve fielded a couple of questions about the responsibilities for notifying victims of court hearings and the interplay between victims’ state constitutional rights and defendants’ rights under the state and federal constitutions. This post sets forth my (admittedly preliminary) thoughts on those matters.
Author’s note: Senate Bill 682 was signed by the Governor on September 4, 2019, and was chaptered as S.L. 2019-216.
Last week, the General Assembly ratified Senate Bill 682, which implements the 2018 constitutional amendment that expanded the rights of crime victims. The bill, ratified one day before the constitutional amendment took effect, awaits the Governor’s signature. This post briefly reviews the history of state-law protections for crime victims and the provisions of the 2018 amendment before discussing some of the more significant aspects of SB 682.