Jeff Welty, Author at North Carolina Criminal Law

News Roundup

February 19, 2009 Jeff Welty

This post simply highlights and links to some of the criminal law news that’s broken over the last few days, since there’s been an unusual amount of it. First, the National Academy of Sciences issued an apparently scathing report about the state of the nation’s crime labs. Newspaper story here, full report available for purchase … Read more

New Cases on the Rape Shield Law

February 18, 2009 Jeff Welty

The Court of Appeals decided two rape shield cases this month — State v. Cook and State v. Adu — and Cook, in particular, is a good illustration of how protective our courts are of the privacy of alleged victims of sexual assaults. North Carolina’s rape shield law, N.C. R. Evid. 412, prohibits the introduction … Read more

Recording Interrogations

February 16, 2009 Jeff Welty

A couple of sessions ago, the General Assembly enacted G.S. 15A-211, which requires that custodial interrogations in homicide cases be recorded. The idea is to “eliminate disputes about interrogations,” id., and particularly, to prevent and record any coercion by law enforcement that might result in a false confession, and to prevent false claims of coercion. … Read more

Investigative Court Orders

February 13, 2009 Jeff Welty

I am teaching today, so I only have time for a quick post on a subject that crops up from time to time: how can the state compel access to documents it wants or needs to review during a criminal investigation? In the federal system, the grand jury can subpoena documents in its investigative capacity, … Read more

U Visas for Undocumented Crime Victims

February 12, 2009February 12, 2009 Jeff Welty

Criminal lawyers are paying more attention to immigration issues in cases where the defendant is not a United States citizen, and that’s a good thing. But my sense is that many lawyers don’t know about a provision of immigration law that applies in certain cases where the victim is not a United States citizen. It’s … Read more

Searching Probationers

February 11, 2009 Jeff Welty

The News and Observer ran a story today about a piece of proposed legislation that would allow any law enforcement officer to search any probationer, for any reason, at any time. The story is here, and the proposed legislation itself is available here. In essence, it would remove G.S. 15A-1343(b1)(7), which gives judges the option … Read more

“Obtaining” Property for Another

February 10, 2009 Jeff Welty

Valentine’s day is coming up, which got me thinking about a fact pattern I ran into a while back. Dan wants to get his girlfriend, Ann, a present — say, roses — but doesn’t want to pay for the gift. So Dan tells Victor, a florist, that he’ll pay Victor in a few days if … Read more

Sexting

February 6, 2009 Jeff Welty

The News and Observer has had several interesting criminal justice articles over the past few days — including one about the great potted plant caper, available here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2932/story/1394388.html — but the one that struck me the most was this one, about “sexting”: http://www.newsobserver.com/1595/story/1393616.html. Apparently, posting naked pictures of oneself on Myspace is soooooooo 2008. Kids who are really … Read more

Upcoming Training Opportunities

December 31, 2015February 5, 2009 Jeff Welty

Both prosecutors and defense lawyers have some training opportunities coming up here at the School of Government. Since this blog is intended to be of interest to both sides (as well as judges, law enforcement, and others), I thought I’d plug all of the training opportunities. A program for (relatively) new prosecutors will run from … Read more

Sex Offenders, Online Identifiers, and the First Amendment

February 9, 2009February 3, 2009 Jeff Welty

A federal judge in Utah recently invalidated the part of Utah’s sex offender registry that requires each registrant to provide his “[i]nternet identifiers and . . . addresses . . . [and] the name . . . of all websites on which the sex offender is registered.” Doe v. Shurtleff, 2008 WL 4427594 (D. Ut. Sept. 15, 2008) (quoting Utah Code Ann. § 77-27-21.5(12)(i) & (j)). This raises some questions about the constitutionality of North Carolina’s new requirement that sex offenders provide “[a]ny online identifier that the person uses or intends to use.” G.S. 14-208.7(b)(7) (eff. May 1, 2009). . .