A UNC School of Government Blog
Shea Denning This is not a sports story – despite what the title may suggest. Besides, I am so over March Madness. There was a little too much madness and not enough March for this double Tarheel. State v. Geisslercrain is among of yesterday’s batch of court of appeals opinions. (The court issued twenty-four published opinions yesterday—leading … Read more
We’re holding a seminar on professionalism and ethics for judges at the School of Government next week so I’ve got judicial canons on my mind. Below are five ethical rules many legal professionals may not know about, but probably should. 1. Judges can’t sell Girl Scout cookies. Canon 5(B)(2) of the North Carolina Judicial Code … Read more
I’ve been married to a man for sixteen years. That makes me an expert in men’s dress. If the occasion is formal—an important meeting at work, a cocktail party, a wedding, or a funeral—he wears a suit and tie. If the dress is business casual, he wears slacks and a dress shirt. If we’re going … Read more
The decades-old state supreme court decision in State v. Knoll, 322 N.C. 535 (1988), dismissing charges against three impaired driving defendants, is confusing. For starters, the Knoll court’s decision hinged in part on its determination that the defendants were unlawfully detained. Yet the court never even mentioned G.S. 15A-534.2—the statute authorizing the detention of impaired … Read more
Is it a crime to attempt to drive while impaired? Consider these facts. Suppose a law enforcement officer sees a person stumble to a car outside of a bar, unlock the car, and sit down in the driver’s seat. While the person fumbles with his keys in an attempt to put the correct one in … Read more
You don’t have to attend basic law enforcement training to identify a potential impaired driver. Plenty of folks without police training could roll off a list of tell-tale signs, including excessive weaving, driving without headlights, and driving with the windows down in cold weather, particular when those signs are observed in the evening hours in … Read more
The television news magazine 20/20 aired video footage last fall of North Carolina law enforcement officers speeding on Interstate 40 near Raleigh. Reporters followed the police vehicles to determine whether they were chasing a suspect, rushing to a crime scene, or otherwise involved in an emergency. None were. One officer drove directly to a doughnut … Read more
The New York Times reported earlier this week that driving under the influence of marijuana is significantly less risky than driving with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08. That’s a good thing, since the Times also reported that impairment from marijuana is difficult to detect using the current battery of standardized field sobriety tests and difficult … Read more
Regular and well-publicized checkpoints are an important component of the State’s effort to curtail impaired driving. Checkpoints provide specific as well as general deterrence. A handful of impaired drivers typically are arrested at any given checking station and subsequently prosecuted for impaired driving. Many more drivers than are stopped hear about the checkpoint. That publicity … Read more
Author’s Note: The opinion discussed below was withdrawn on February 4, 2014 and replaced by an opinion discussed here. How can a sentencing factor found by a judge that doubles a defendant’s maximum sentence not implicate Blakely? I pondered this question a few years ago after the court of appeals in State v. Green, … Read more