News Roundup

There were so many significant and interesting stories this week, it’s hard to decide where to begin. But I’ve settled on this USA Today story about federal inmates serving sentences for possession of a firearm by a felon. The problem? The inmates aren’t really felons, at least not under current federal law. Here’s the short … Read more

Second Amendment Update

In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the United States Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess firearms for lawful purposes such as self-defense. Heller unleashed a tsunami of litigation over the nature and scope of that right. Of particular interest to criminal lawyers, Heller led … Read more

News Roundup

The General Assembly’s in session, and Republican legislators are moving to amend the Racial Justice Act. An AP article on point states that the proposal would “strip away much of the act,” but doesn’t delve into specifics. As far as I can tell, the current version of the bill under discussion is this one. Among … Read more

The Court of Appeals Finds Indictment Errors — We Offer an Updated Resource for Avoiding Them

The court of appeals issued a new batch of opinions today. They’re available in full here, and Jessie just sent summaries out to the listserv. (If you haven’t joined the listserv for case summaries, you can do so here.) The thing that jumped out at me about today’s cases was that the court found several … Read more

News Roundup

Yesterday, I noted that the John Edwards jury had been deliberating for nine days. Apparently, nine days was long enough. As the News and Observer notes here, the jurors reported “that they were hopelessly divided on five of the six charges . . . but in unanimous agreement that [Edwards] was not guilty on one … Read more

The John Edwards Trial and Long Jury Deliberations

The John Edwards jury is back today for its ninth day of deliberations. The general feeling seems to be, “what’s taking so long?” This morning, I got to wondering whether nine days is merely really long, or whether it is really, really, spectacularly and historically long. Seems like the former. A few minutes on the … Read more

News Roundup

I thought that if I delayed this post long enough, I would be able to include something about the John Edwards verdict. But there still isn’t one, so I can only speculate that the jury is attempting to set a world record for longest deliberation. Either that, or they’ve got a heck of a Monopoly … Read more

News Roundup

Well, this is embarrassing. “Orange-Chatham District Attorney Jim Woodall has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to . . . probe . . . UNC-Chapel Hill’s African and Afro-American Studies program, following findings of academic fraud by a university review, according to the News and Observer. The former chair of the department was allegedly paid … Read more