A UNC School of Government Blog
Jeff Welty 
According to this report, when United States Supreme Court clerks are looking for commentary about cutting-edge legal issues — like when they’re considering petitions for certiorari — they don’t look at law reviews anymore. They read blogs. I have a new spring in my step today! In other news: 1. The News and Observer reports … Read more
This week, the court of appeals decided State v. Forte, a case in which the defendant was convicted of exploitation of an elder adult in violation of G.S. 14-112.2 and its predecessor. The case provides a helpful interpretation of some of the key terms in the statute, and it is worth reading for that alone. … Read more
I’ve just finished a paper about motor vehicle checkpoints. It’s available here as a free download. It’s meant as a resource for judges, lawyers, and law enforcement officers, and it includes sections on establishing, operating, and litigating checkpoints. I hope it’s useful, and I’ll be interested in your feedback about it, which you can provide … Read more
There wasn’t enough news last week to justify a news roundup, but there sure was this week: 1. The SBI lab saga continues. The president of the Conference of District Attorneys has called for a moratorium on executions until the issues with the lab are resolved, as discussed here. The Conference is also asking for … Read more
In Arizona v. Gant, __ U.S. __, 129 S. Ct. 1710 (2009), the Supreme Court held that an officer may search an arrestee’s vehicle incident to arrest only if the arrestee is unsecured and “within reaching distance of the passenger compartment” or “it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of … Read more
About two years ago, I wrote a paper on GPS tracking. It’s available here. There have been a couple of major decisions in the area recently, so this post is a bit of an update to my earlier work. I wrote in the paper that “[m]ost, but not all” courts have found that when the … Read more
Last week, the court of appeals decided State v. Yencer, ruling, in effect, that Davidson College may not operate its own police department. The ruling calls into serious question the authority of several other private universities’ police departments, meaning that it is of interest not only in Davidson, but also Durham (the website of the … Read more
In previous posts, my colleagues and I have discussed several of the noteworthy bills enacted by the General Assembly in the short session that concluded last month. For example, Jamie wrote about some developments in the law of sentencing and corrections here, I posted John Rubin’s summary of the new gun rights legislation here, and … Read more
The biggest criminal law story this week has to be the ongoing controversy over the SBI. Two independent reviewers examined the work of the Forensic Biology Section of the SBI lab — the section responsible for blood testing — and found 230 cases in which problems existed. In some cases, for example, “[l]aboratory test results … Read more
Because our appellate courts often find the Fourth Circuit’s opinions to be persuasive authority, I read all the Fourth Circuit’s published criminal cases. Yesterday, the court decided United States v. Johnson, a drug case involving two noteworthy issues. The short version of the facts is as follows: Officers wiretapped a suspected drug dealer’s phone. The … Read more