January 7, 2015
In opinions spanning four decades, North Carolina’s appellate courts have suppressed chemical analysis results in impaired driving cases based on statutory violations related to their administration. When the violation consists […]
January 6, 2015
I previously wrote (here) about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent cert grant in Ohio v. Clark, a case in which the Court will decide whether a three-year-old child’s statements to […]
December 15, 2014
In early October the Supreme Court granted certiorari in an Ohio case, State v. Clark, 999 N.E.2d 592 (Ohio 2013), cert. granted __ U.S. __, 135 S. Ct. 43 (2014), […]
December 11, 2014
Most people stopped on suspicion of impaired driving would rather avoid the trip to the police station. Some suspects attempt to dispel officers’ suspicions by answering questions about whether they have been […]
December 2, 2014
One of my all-time favorite emails was received from a prosecutor who was handling a drug trafficking case. The email included a picture, plucked from what purported to be the […]
November 6, 2014
The Chatham County sheriff’s deputy who arrested Ronald McCrary in Siler City for impaired driving at 7:34 p.m. on December 28, 2010 decided that if McCrary was taken to the […]
September 16, 2014
Portable breath tests don’t go very far anymore in proving whether a suspect is impaired from alcohol. That’s because the legislature amended G.S. 20-16.3(d) in 2006 to provide that the […]
September 15, 2014
During the second phase of a capital trial, the jury must decide whether to sentence the defendant to death or to life in prison. The jury’s perception of prison life […]
September 4, 2014
Detectives investigating the rape and murder of an elderly woman in Shelby didn’t give up when suspect Donald Borders first refused to provide a sample of his DNA. They asked […]
August 7, 2014
The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution are commonly known as the Bill of Rights and were ratified on December 15, 1791. It is remarkable how many of these […]