A UNC School of Government Blog
Jeff Welty 
It’s Friday before a holiday weekend. What better time for a news roundup? 1. Two brothers prevented a 19-year-old jogger from being abducted in Chapel Hill recently. Their inspiring story is here. 2. A much more somber story about crime in Chapel Hill is here: Demario Atwater pleaded guilty to murdering student body president Eve … Read more
Consider the following scenario. The police arrest Sam Suspect and charge him with murdering his wife, Vicky Victim. The arrest is based on a statement from Frank Friend, one of Sam’s buddies. According to Frank, Sam told him that he was having an affair and killed Vicky to get her “out of the way.” Sam … Read more
The News and Observer reports today on “a proposal to collect DNA from suspects when they are arrested for felonies or violent crimes.” The bill in question is H1403, and it states that “any person who is arrested for committing a felony must provide his or her DNA sample . . . for . . … Read more
In the game show Name that Tune, contestants had to identify song titles correctly in order to win cash prizes. In criminal pleadings in North Carolina, the state must identify drugs correctly in order to win convictions. The latest illustration of this principle is State v. LePage, a decision rendered by the court of appeals … Read more
1. Bloggers often feel like Rodney Dangerfield: we get no respect. But over the past week, I’ve learned that under the latest revision of the Bluebook, the citation manual for lawyers, “blog posts are cited much the same as law journals or other periodicals,” instead of being treated like emails and other informal correspondence. (Hat … Read more
Jamie mentioned yesterday that the Supreme Court decided two important cases this week. Graham v. Florida, which Jamie covered yesterday, is the blockbuster, but United States v. Comstock is also worth discussing briefly. As I mentioned in a prior post, the issue in Comstock was the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 4248. That statute allows … Read more
I often post news roundups on Fridays. Somehow, lighter fare seems appropriate for the last day of the work week. But the news has been piling up since the last roundup, and the backlog has become so large that I can’t wait even one more day. Already, interesting stuff is being crowded out! 1. Solicitor … Read more
If you haven’t heard about them already, you should know about two fantastic new publications by School of Government faculty members. The first is Bob Farb’s paper on Maryland v. Shatzer, the Supreme Court’s recent Miranda case that I mentioned briefly here. The Court held that after a suspect invokes his right to counsel, police … Read more
Yesterday, I noted that the public safety exception to Miranda has been invoked in two recent terrorism cases to justify delaying the administration of Miranda warnings. A commenter correctly identified the seminal case in this area: New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649 (1984). In Quarles, a woman approached two police officers, told them that … Read more
As everyone knows, a car bomb was recently found, and defused, in New York City. The New York Times summarizes the basic facts as follows: A crude car bomb made from gasoline, propane, firecrackers and alarm clocks was discovered in a smoking Nissan Pathfinder in the heart of Times Square on May 1, 2010, prompting … Read more