North Carolina Criminal Law

I am working on a new edition of the self-defense book I wrote in 1996. As in the story of Rip Van Winkle, a lot has changed in twenty years. […]

Read post

[Editor’s note: Emily Coward, the author of today’s post, is an attorney who works with the indigent defense education team at the School of Government. She is a co-author of […]

Read post

The 50th anniversary of the landmark ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), will occur in a few weeks on June 13. As everyone knows, the case required […]

Read post

I’ve written before about whether a court may order a person to provide a password to a computer or a passcode to a phone to enable an officer to complete […]

Read post

Last week, the court of appeals decided State v. Allen, a case that holds that the pleading requirements that apply to indictments and other accusatory pleadings don’t necessarily apply to […]

Read post

In the recent case of State v. Hurd, the N.C. Court of Appeals upheld a claim by a prosecutor that a defendant’s peremptory strike of a prospective White juror was […]

Read post

No, Justice Ervin didn’t use the words hot mess. But anyone who slogs their way through the tortured procedural swamp that led to State v. Miller, __ N.C. __ (March […]

Read post

On Friday, the Fourth Circuit, deciding “an issue of first impression,” ruled that a new trial is required when a defense lawyer sleeps through a substantial portion of a trial. […]

Read post

Nearly five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided J.D.B. v. North Carolina, a case arising from the police interrogation of a middle school student in Chapel Hill. In a […]

Read post

In an opinion last week, the court of appeals helpfully summarized the law about how a defendant may lose the right to counsel, and may have recognized a new way […]

Read post