A UNC School of Government Blog
Some recent celebrity news has made me think about our extortion statute. The statute is G.S. 14-118.4, and it says: Any person who threatens or communicates a threat or threats to another with the intention thereby wrongfully to obtain anything of value or any acquittance, advantage, or immunity is guilty of extortion and such person … Read more
I’ve blogged previously about the Britt and Whitaker cases. Britt held that a particular convicted felon retained his right to bear arms under the state constitution, and that G.S. 14-415.1 — which purports to prohibit all felons from possessing firearms — was unconstitutional as applied to him. Whitaker rejected a similar claim made by another … Read more
According to the News and Observer, Governor Perdue has signed House Bill 80, entitled “An Act to Ban the Use of Electronic Machines and Devices for Sweepstakes Purposes.” It becomes effective December 1. I thought I’d take a few minutes to provide some background about the bill, summarize it, and identify some issues that I … Read more
The Supreme Court just finished the Term that began in October 2009, and it went out with a bang. On Monday, it announced what was perhaps the most-anticipated opinion of the year, McDonald v. City of Chicago. The genesis for McDonald was District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. __ (2008), the case in which … Read more
“You don’t know what you have until it’s gone” is classic relationship advice. But is “I didn’t know what I had until it was seized” a classic defense to drug charges? Consider the facts of State v. Hall. An officer stopped the defendant’s car for a traffic violation. The traffic stop led to a search … Read more
The News and Observer reported last week that “Duke University police arrested a Louisburg woman . . . for attempting to steal an infant [from] Duke Hospital.” It sounds as though she’s been charged with abduction of children in violation of G.S. 14-41. (I speculate that she wasn’t charged with kidnapping because of a concern … Read more
Regular readers of this blog know that I’m interested in electronic gadgets. One of my favorites is my Apple iPhone, so I’ve watched with great interest the saga unfolding over at Gizmodo, a leading gadget blog. (This will eventually connect to North Carolina criminal law, I promise.) The basic facts appear to be as follows: … Read more
I wrote about satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders ten times in 2009. The court of appeals’ recent decision in State v. Phillips gives me my first occasion to write about it in 2010. In Phillips, the defendant pled guilty to taking indecent liberties with a child under G.S. 14-202.1 and felonious child abuse by … Read more
Under G.S. 20-154(a), “before starting, stopping or turning from a direct line [, a driver] shall first see that such movement can be made in safety . . . and whenever the operation of any other vehicle may be affected by such movement, shall give a signal as required” by law. A violation of this … Read more
Driving while license revoked (DWLR), a Class 1 misdemeanor, is one of the most frequently charged criminal offenses in North Carolina. And, while certain elements of the offense are spelled out in G.S. 20-28 and are relatively straightforward—namely that the person (1) operated a motor vehicle, (2) on a highway, (3) while the person’s license … Read more