December 5, 2016
This post addresses three recurrent issues concerning eyewitness identification: When, if at all, is expert testimony about eyewitness identification admissible? When, if at all, is an indigent defendant entitled to […]
November 16, 2016
A case involving charges of impaired driving is calendared on today’s district court docket. The defendant was charged more than two years ago; the case has been continued several times […]
October 25, 2016
Last week, the North Carolina Court of Appeals in State v. Watson (October 18, 2016) ruled that an officer’s erroneous completion of a juvenile waiver of rights form did not […]
October 4, 2016
So say two statutes enacted by the General Assembly in 2011 as part of its revision of North Carolina’s self-defense law. G.S. 14-51.2(e) and G.S. 14-51.3(b) both state that a […]
September 12, 2016
Is it proper to charge a defendant separately with a greater offense and with a lesser-included offense? For example, is it proper to charge a defendant with robbery and with […]
August 31, 2016
True or False: An officer does not have to be qualified as an expert to testify about horizontal gaze nystagmus in a hearing on a motion to suppress in an […]
July 5, 2016
Suppose that when a criminal defendant appears in court, he is advised of the right to have counsel appointed if indigent, tells the judge he wants to hire his own […]
June 22, 2016
No legislative session would be complete without amendments to the state’s DWI laws. The 2016 short session upholds this tradition by amending the procedures that govern the admissibility of chemical analyses […]
June 21, 2016
Summer is here and everyone is feeling excited about fair cross-section claims. Or at least I am after hearing an enlightening presentation about them, described below.
June 20, 2016
On TV and in the movies, arrestees are entitled to one phone call upon arrest. In real life, the situation is more complicated.