A UNC School of Government Blog
The court of appeals decided another significant Rodriguez case yesterday, ruling (again) in State v. Reed that the highway patrol trooper who stopped the defendant for speeding on Interstate 95 detained the defendant for longer than necessary to carry out the mission of the stop without reasonable suspicion of other criminal activity.
I’m happy to announce my first indigent defense practice guide, Defense Motions and Notices in Superior Court. As the title implies, it’s a court-ready guide for practitioners about common defense motions in superior court criminal cases at the trial level. While it is primarily written with non-capital felony cases in mind, the information will hopefully be useful to all criminal defense attorneys.
More than a trillion text messages are sent each year in the United States alone. Some of these messages are work-related communications from law enforcement officers to fellow officers, witnesses, prosecutors, and others. Which, if any, of these messages are discoverable? How should officers preserve discoverable messages? Must prosecutors ask for officers’ text messages before providing discovery to the defense? This post begins to address these questions.
This fall is manual season, and I am excited to announce the release of the 2017 edition of the North Carolina Juvenile Defender Manual. Like our other indigent defense manuals, this online manual can be viewed at no charge. If you’re interested in purchasing a soft-bound version of the manual, available later this month, visit this page.
Last week, the court of appeals reversed a defendant’s conviction for first-degree murder. That doesn’t happen every day, so let’s unpack the case. The central issue concerns two eyewitnesses’ in-court identifications of the defendant.
The court of appeals last year vacated Sandra Brice’s conviction for habitual misdemeanor larceny for stealing five packs of steaks valued at $70 from a Food Lion in Hickory. The reason? The indictment alleged the steak theft and Brice’s four prior convictions for misdemeanor larceny in a single count. That violated a statutory rule requiring that prior convictions be alleged in a separate count, and, in the court of appeals’ view, deprived the superior court of jurisdiction to enter judgment against Brice for habitual misdemeanor larceny, a felony offense. Earlier this month, the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and remanded the case for reinstatement of the trial court’s judgment. Read on to find out why.
I am excited to announce the release of the 2017 edition of our manual, specific to North Carolina law and practice, on the immigration consequences of a criminal conviction. We hope that this online manual, which can be viewed at no charge, will be a useful resource in understanding this challenging area of law.
The court of appeals recently decided that an indictment alleging that a defendant stole some shirts from “Belk’s Department Stores, an entity capable of owning property,” did not sufficiently identify the victim as an entity capable of owning property. State v. Brawley, __ N.C. App. __, __ S.E.2d __, 2017 WL 4632820 (Oct. 17, 2017). This post summarizes the decision, considers the possibility of further review, and explains how other states handle this issue.
A few years ago, I wrote a blog post (here) about the corpus delicti rule. That rule popped up in a recent court of appeals case, State v. Messer. Here’s a refresher and an update on the new case.
While we wait to see what the North Carolina Supreme Court has to say in State v. Turner about the existing statute of limitations for misdemeanors, the General Assembly has amended G.S. 15-1 for future prosecutions.