North Carolina Criminal Law

I was recently asked whether one spouse can properly be charged with larceny for stealing joint property from the other spouse. Apparently, this question comes up frequently with separated spouses. […]

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Like many lawyers, I served on a law review when I was a law student. It was a good experience: I became intimately familiar with the rules of legal citation, […]

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Back in July the court of appeals decided State v. Hubbard, a probation revocation case that I mentioned in passing but never really discussed in depth. In Hubbard the defendant’s […]

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I blogged here about a new law, that prohibits texting while driving effective December 1, 2009. Texting while driving is an infraction, a non-criminal violation of the law, punishable by […]

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The state supreme court issued a batch of opinions last Friday, and while several of them are notable, the one that has received the most attention is Britt v. North […]

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I’m working on revising Arrest Warrant and Indictment Forms, a manual that provides charging language for several hundred common offenses. In the course of working on language for possession of […]

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The court of appeals decided State v. Cole, __ N.C. App. __ (2009), yesterday. Simplifying the facts a bit, the two defendants planned to rob two victims, and, brandishing firearms, […]

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I’ve had several questions recently about the merger doctrine as it applies to felony murder. It’s a complicated area, made even more confusing because there are two different doctrines that […]

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Editor’s note: The News and Observer has a point/counterpoint today about the merits of the new law against texting while driving. Check it out here and here. The New York […]

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Last week, the court of appeals decided State v. Watterson, __ N.C. App. __ (2009). The defendant was charged with, and convicted of, two counts of possession of a weapon […]

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