A UNC School of Government Blog
I posted yesterday about one of the recent Court of Appeals decisions. At the risk of going back to the well, I want to highlight another of those cases today. (I’ve got something else in mind for tomorrow.) In State v. Revels, available here, the defendant was convicted of second-degree murder. She appealed, claiming that … Read more
Because of a case currently pending in Gaston County — story here — several people have asked me about the law as it concerns scaring a person to death. Let me start off with two caveats. First, this post is not a comment on the Gaston County case, about which I know nothing more than … Read more
The Supreme Court (Washington, not Raleigh) has had a bit of a slow February so far, whether because of Justice Ginsburg’s well-publicized health problems or for some other reason. Still, it’s done a couple things of interest to criminal lawyers. First, it adopted a broad interpretation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9), which prohibits people who have … Read more
North Carolina has a number of different assault crimes, like simple assault, assault on a female, assault with a deadly weapon, and so on. We also have a confusing body of case law regarding the propriety of multiple assault convictions based on a single course of conduct. For example, can a defendant who assaults his … Read more
North Carolina law prohibits convicted felons from possessing firearms. See G.S. 14-415.1. I’ve had several recurrent questions about this offense, so here’s an FAQ about FIP (felon in possession): 1. Doesn’t North Carolina allow felons to possess long guns? Not anymore. North Carolina’s FIP law used to have lots of exceptions, including exceptions for long … Read more
Valentine’s day is coming up, which got me thinking about a fact pattern I ran into a while back. Dan wants to get his girlfriend, Ann, a present — say, roses — but doesn’t want to pay for the gift. So Dan tells Victor, a florist, that he’ll pay Victor in a few days if … Read more