A UNC School of Government Blog
Jeff Welty 
The court of appeals released a batch of opinions yesterday. Several are interesting and important, and there were an unusually large number of opinions in favor of defendants, including some in very serious cases. One of those is State v. Carter, the court’s first stab at applying Arizona v. Gant — a case about which … Read more
Several recent news items may be of interest to readers of this blog: 1. FBI data shows that violent crimes, and especially homicides, dropped again last year and are now at rates that one expert says haven’t been seen since the 1960s. The FBI’s report is here and the News and Observer‘s story is here. … Read more
Further Update: See Shea Denning’s post here about State v. Mumford, in which the court of appeals held that “logically inconsistent and legally contradictory” verdicts cannot stand. It has the potential to expand significantly the circumstances under which inconsistent verdicts are grounds for a new trial. Update: One more type of inconsistent verdict is the … Read more
I recently completed an Administration of Justice Bulletin on evidentiary issues in sex crimes cases. It’s available for free here. It covers the application of N.C. R. Evid. 412, i.e., the rape shield rule, as well as the application of N.C. Rule Ev. 404(b) as it relates to evidence of prior sexual misconduct by the … Read more
I’m still not done with the last round of court of appeals and North Carolina Supreme Court opinions, but I found a little gem in one of the high court’s opinions. For the first time, the state supreme court has addressed the search of a cell phone incident to arrest. I’ve blogged about this issue … Read more
Melendez-Diaz v. Massachussetts, as most readers of this blog know, is the United States Supreme Court’s latest pronouncement on the Confrontation Clause. Generally, it holds that forensic laboratory reports — like chemical analyses of drugs, DNA tests, and so on — are “testimonial” for Confrontation Clause purposes. That means a laboratory report generally may not … Read more
I am constantly amazed at the innovative work my colleagues are doing. A new and incredibly useful tool — but one that is not widely known — is Jessie Smith’s criminal case compendium, available here. It organizes important criminal cases by category, so you can look at the section on indictments if you have an … Read more
Although there’s been a ton of relevant news since the last News Roundup, the most timely and interesting stories all relate to claims of actual innocence. To start with, Joseph Abbitt of Winston-Salem was exonerated yesterday. After serving 14 years for raping two teenage girls — both of whom positively identified him as the perpetrator … Read more
The state supreme court issued a batch of opinions last Friday, and while several of them are notable, the one that has received the most attention is Britt v. North Carolina. (You can see the News and Observer’s story here, and a couple of commentators’ views here and here.) Barney Britt pled guilty to PWISD … Read more
Our court system assumes that people can tell whether other people are telling the truth by evaluating the demeanor of the other people. This is true in a wide range of contexts. Jurors are encouraged to consider the demeanor of each witness in deciding whether to credit the witness’s testimony. N.C.P.I. — Crim. 101.15 (referring … Read more