A UNC School of Government Blog
Jeff Welty 
Nationally, the biggest criminal law story of the week was the decision by a federal judge in California declaring the state’s death penalty unconstitutional. The case is Jones v. Chappell, and the essence of the Eighth Amendment argument is this: Since 1978, when the current death penalty system was adopted by California voters, over 900 … Read more
This week, the court of appeals decided a case that is a good reminder about the limits of the State’s authority to address problems in charging documents by filing a misdemeanor statement of charges. In State v. Wall, Richmond County officers sought to arrest William Wall, Sr. based on a Florida warrant and to serve … Read more
Locally, the big criminal justice news was former UNC basketball player P.J. Hairston getting a criminal summons. He allegedly punched a high school basketball player during a pickup game at the Durham YMCA. WRAL has the story here. I don’t know whether Tar Heels are more likely to cringe when hearing Hairston’s name or that … Read more
Last month, the court of appeals decided State v. Hogan, __ N.C. App. __, 758 S.E.2d 465 (2014), a case about the use of a defendant’s prior convictions from New Jersey in determining the defendant’s prior record level. It’s an interesting case and one that has implications for the use of such convictions in the … Read more
A man in Charlotte was struck by a stray bullet on July 4th. The police say that “it appears that it was not an intentional shooting but that someone . . . fired a celebration shot into the air” and happened to hit the man. The shot could have been fired anywhere in a several … Read more
A couple of news items caught struck me during this holiday-shortened week. Impact of Riley on pending cases. I’ve started to have questions about the impact of Riley v. California, the Supreme Court case barring cell phone searches incident to arrest, on pending cases. The analysis is a bit of a long story. A good … Read more
Yesterday, the court of appeals decided a very important traffic stop case. Its ruling strictly limits officers to pursuing the original justification for a traffic stop, and prohibits officers from extending the stop even briefly for most other investigative activity. This is an area of the law that has been muddled in North Carolina, and … Read more
If you thought that last week’s announcement of the 2013 Punishment Chart for North Carolina Crimes and Motor Vehicle Offenses was exciting, you will be even more entranced by this week’s offering! Yes, the 2013 update to Arrest Warrant and Indictment Forms is now available! We’re still waiting for the Publisher’s Weekly review, but if … Read more
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a long-awaited opinion concerning searching cell phones incident to arrest. The Court ruled that the search incident to arrest exception to the warrant requirement doesn’t apply to cell phones. North Carolina law previously allowed such searches, so the opinion is significant. The facts of the cases. The Court ruled on … Read more
Monday, the Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari filed in Ballard v. Pennsylvania. One interesting aspect of the case is that the defendant on whose behalf the petition was filed says that he never authorized it to be filed, and the lawyer who filed it says that he is not the inmate’s lawyer. The … Read more