A UNC School of Government Blog
Jeff Welty 
In 2007, the General Assembly enacted the Eyewitness Identification Reform Act, G.S. 15A-284.50 et seq. The heart of the Act is G.S. 15A-284.52, which lays out rules for conducting lineups, whether live, i.e., involving the actual suspect and several other fillers, or by photo array, i.e., involving a picture of the suspect and several other … Read more
Update: I spent some time over the weekend thinking about this case. It seems to me that one likely upshot of Harbison is that some states that currently provide for the appointment of counsel at the clemency stage will stop doing so. After all, why spend scarce state funds to provide for something that the … Read more
Several newsworthy items have cropped up lately, so I wanted to take a day to highlight some of them. First and foremost, the News and Observer has a troubling front-page story, here, about the SBI’s investigation into allegedly fraudulent dismissals of DWI cases in Johnston County. Not the sort of publicity the court system needs. … Read more
Last week, the North Carolina Supreme Court decided State v. Miller, an interesting and very, very close constructive possession case. Prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges should all be aware of it. The short version of the facts is as follows: Winston-Salem police obtained a search warrant for a house based on suspicion of drug activity. … Read more
Update: I knew it. One reader emailed me to say that our appellate courts have approved truncated jury instructions for at least thirty years, and referred me to State v. Gainey, 355 N.C. 72 (2002), which collects some cases and states that the court “has discouraged needless repetition” during jury instructions. Original Post: One of … Read more
G.S. 90-96 is one of the densest, most used, and most misunderstood statutes on the books. Let’s try to unpack it a little bit. There are two distinct subsections under which cases may fall — subsections (a) and (a1) — and the two subsections are different in scope and in effect. We’ll start with subsection … Read more
One of the services that we offer here at the School of Government is what I like to call the “hotline.” When you have a question about the law, you can call us or email us and we’ll try to answer it. Although different faculty members treat those calls slightly differently, most of us treat … Read more
Can the state compel a suspect to provide access to encrypted files on the suspect’s computer? For example, if the police suspect that I’m running a Ponzi scheme, but I’ve got all my business records encrypted, can the state require me to produce an unencrypted version of the records? It’s an important question because more … Read more
The Court of Appeals released a number of opinions yesterday. Bob Farb will undoubtedly release his inimitable summaries shortly — to sign up to receive the summaries by email, go here — but I wanted to call attention to one case right away, as it should be of interest to officers, prosecutors, and defense lawyers … Read more
The Sixth Circuit, sitting en banc, recently decided a very interesting Miranda case. Garner v. Mitchell, available here, is a capital case. The defendant stole a woman’s purse, took a taxi to her house, robbed it, and set it on fire to conceal his fingerprints, killing five of the six children who were sleeping in … Read more