A UNC School of Government Blog
The decades-old state supreme court decision in State v. Knoll, 322 N.C. 535 (1988), dismissing charges against three impaired driving defendants, is confusing. For starters, the Knoll court’s decision hinged in part on its determination that the defendants were unlawfully detained. Yet the court never even mentioned G.S. 15A-534.2—the statute authorizing the detention of impaired … Read more
Rule 804 contains five hearsay exceptions that apply when the declarant is unavailable. I addressed one of them—the residual exception—in a prior post. Another one of the five—statements of family history—rarely arises in the criminal law so I won’t spend any time on it. In this post I’ll tackle two of the Rule 804 exceptions: … Read more
In earlier posts I covered the major Rule 803 hearsay exceptions, for which unavailability is immaterial. Rule 804 contains additional hearsay exceptions, but they only apply when the declarant is unavailable. What does unavailability mean? The Rule specifies five circumstances when a declarant is unavailable. The sections below explore them. Privilege. A witness is unavailable … Read more
You don’t have to attend basic law enforcement training to identify a potential impaired driver. Plenty of folks without police training could roll off a list of tell-tale signs, including excessive weaving, driving without headlights, and driving with the windows down in cold weather, particular when those signs are observed in the evening hours in … Read more
In a series of posts, I’ve been covering some of the hearsay exceptions that arise most commonly in criminal cases. The residual exceptions make that list. Here is your primer on those exceptions. Generally. Even if an out-of-court statement doesn’t fall within a specific hearsay exception, it still may be admissible under the residual exceptions … Read more
The television news magazine 20/20 aired video footage last fall of North Carolina law enforcement officers speeding on Interstate 40 near Raleigh. Reporters followed the police vehicles to determine whether they were chasing a suspect, rushing to a crime scene, or otherwise involved in an emergency. None were. One officer drove directly to a doughnut … Read more
In my last blog post on hearsay exceptions, I discussed the business records exception. Here, I’ll address the hearsay exception for public records and reports. Rule 803(8) provides a hearsay exception for “[r]ecords, reports, statements, or data compilations, in any form, of public offices or agencies, setting forth: (A) the activities of the office or … Read more
Continuing my series on commonly used hearsay exceptions, we arrive, in this post, at the business records exception. This one comes up a lot in criminal cases. Here are the basics. Covered Records. The exception applies to “a memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions, or diagnoses.” N.C. … Read more
In a series of blog posts, I’ve been tackling the most common hearsay exceptions. This post focuses on the Rule 803(5) exception for recorded recollections. N.C. Rule 803(5) contains a hearsay exception for “[a] memorandum or record concerning a matter about which a witness once had knowledge but now has insufficient recollection to enable him … Read more
Regular and well-publicized checkpoints are an important component of the State’s effort to curtail impaired driving. Checkpoints provide specific as well as general deterrence. A handful of impaired drivers typically are arrested at any given checking station and subsequently prosecuted for impaired driving. Many more drivers than are stopped hear about the checkpoint. That publicity … Read more