A UNC School of Government Blog
Jeff Welty 
I’m preparing to teach a session during which I’ll cover the use of Rule 404(b) evidence in sexual assault cases. (As most readers of this blog know, Rule 404(b) evidence is evidence of bad acts by the defendant other than the charged offense; such evidence isn’t supposed to be used to show that the defendant … Read more
Several stories appeared this week that may be of interest: 1. The News and Observer ran this article, headlined “Lawyers Take on Net Predator Law,” about defense attorneys’ efforts to challenge G.S. 14-202.5. The statute makes it a felony for a sex offender to “access a commercial social networking Web site where the sex offender … Read more
I recently received an email that began “I have been reading in the news that Sheriff Mike Cain of Yadkin County pled guilty to eight misdemeanors. I am curious how the Superior Court had jurisdiction [since the case was not an appeal, but rather one of original jurisdiction].” The author suggested that the answer might … Read more
For me, the biggest recent news is that I broke my finger, had surgery on it, and am now much poorer and all doped up on Percocet. But that might not be such interesting news to you, so check out these recent stories instead: 1. As noted yesterday, the General Assembly is back in session. … Read more
I won’t have time today for a regular blog post, so I’ll just make brief mention of something I’ve been meaning to blog about for a week or two, ever since a reader alerted me to it. Over the last couple of months, the court of appeals has decided two post-Gant search incident to arrest … Read more
by Aimee Wall, School of Government faculty member, and Christine Wunsche, Director of the Legislative Reporting Service [Editor’s note: This post appeared today on the School of Government’s local government law blog, and I thought it was worth cross-posting. Although it refers to some subscription-only resources to which many readers of this blog may not … Read more
I love Fridays! Here’s the news of the week: 1. The Youth Accountability Task Force, which was charged by the General Assembly with studying the age at which young offenders should be treated as adults, has released its recommendations. WRAL’s story is here and provides a link to the group’s report. The short version is … Read more
I wrote here about 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), the federal statute that prohibits people who have been convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors from possessing firearms. Federal law also prohibits felons, drug addicts, “mental defective[s],” illegal aliens, and various other groups from having guns. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). In the wake of District of Columbia v. … Read more
There have been a number of interesting stories in the news this week. 1. The national focus has been on Tucson, Arizona, where Jared Loughner is being held without bail on federal charges related to the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of federal district court judge John Roll, among others. There are … Read more
Federal law makes it illegal for a person to possess a gun after having been “convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.” 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9). A “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” is a misdemeanor that “has, as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened … Read more