January 11, 2010
Jeff Welty blogged here about inconsistent verdicts. As he explained, a defendant generally isn’t entitled to relief from inconsistent verdicts, which may result from jury irrationality, a jury’s desire to […]
December 30, 2009
First off, sorry I didn’t post yesterday. I was laid up with food poisoning — I blame holiday leftovers! I’m much better today, so on to today’s topic, which is […]
December 14, 2009
Our murder statute, G.S. 14-17, defines first-degree murder, then proceeds as follows: “All other kinds of murder, including that which shall be proximately caused by the unlawful distribution of opium […]
December 11, 2009
A divided court of appeals decided another significant gun case this week. But before I talk about the opinion in State v. Whitaker, I’ll briefly summarize the legal backdrop for […]
December 9, 2009
I have noted in numerous prior posts (most recently, here) that the statutes governing satellite-based monitoring (SBM) determination hearings (G.S. 14-208.40A and -208.40B) are unclear as to whether the court […]
December 4, 2009
More than a decade ago, the General Assembly enacted G.S. 20-141.5, making it a Class 1 misdemeanor to operate a motor vehicle on street, highway, or public vehicular area while […]
November 19, 2009
We’ve seen several significant cases concerning gun laws in the past few years. The two biggest, of course, are District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. ___ (2008), in which […]
November 16, 2009
Among the most recent batch of opinions issued by the Court of Appeals was State v. Tellez, in which the court upheld the defendant’s conviction of two counts of second-degree […]
November 10, 2009
Can a municipality adopt an ordinance that criminalizes loitering for the purpose of drug activity? I’ve been asked that question several times, and in fact, a number of North Carolina […]
November 3, 2009
As a runner and a criminal lawyer, I found this story irresistable. The short version is that the police in Boulder, Colorado decided to stamp out the Naked Pumpkin Run, […]