A UNC School of Government Blog
Rule 45. This rule surprised me. Before I learned about it, I assumed that when a party sought to introduce hospital medical records at trial, a records custodian appeared in court to testify that the records met the requirements for the business records hearsay exception. Turns out, however, that because of this rule, custodians of … Read more
Forget all your legal training. Pretend you are a juror in a DWI case. Facts. The following facts were established at trial: The defendant was stopped at a checkpoint. The officer smelled alcohol and defendant admitted that he had consumed two glasses of wine earlier in the evening. No field sobriety tests were administered, and … Read more
When a defendant pleads guilty, the judge is required to “inform[] him of the maximum possible sentence” associated with his offense. G.S. 15A-1022(a)(6). When a defendant pleads guilty to being a habitual felon, he must be informed of the maximum sentence he faces as a habitual felon, because the enhanced sentence is a “direct consequence … Read more
My recent paper (here) on the use of remote testimony in criminal cases involving forensic analysts was written in part because of the flood of interest in legislative solutions to Melendez-Diaz. That case held that forensic reports are testimonial and subject to the new Crawford confrontation clause analysis. One slam dunk solution to the Melendez-Diaz … Read more
Yesterday the Supreme Court decided a case that one Justice called “perhaps the most important criminal procedure case that this Court has heard in decades.” A bare majority of the Court ruled that the police may take DNA from those arrested for, but not yet convicted of, “serious offense[s].” The case resolves a deep split … Read more
As state crime lab backlogs increase, it takes longer and longer for blood drawn in connection with impaired driving cases to be tested. In some of these cases, the State may opt to proceed to trial without the results. And sometimes defendants are eager to plead guilty before such blood is tested. A defendant who … Read more
Two cases this month from the Court of Appeals, one published and one not, offer different perspectives on the meaning of an appeal for a “trial de novo” in superior court. Neither of the cases speaks directly to what a trial de novo is, but they offer an opportunity to think about the difference between … Read more
There’s been quite a buzz lately about Google Glass, a “wearable computer” that looks like a pair of eyeglasses but that uses the lenses as transparent screens to display information to the user. (For example, the user might have CNN headlines constantly scrolling on the edge of the screen, or might have the glasses show … Read more
A couple of this blog’s recent Friday News Roundups have linked offbeat stories about contempt and cellphones. In the first a Michigan judge held himself in contempt and ordered a $25 fine when his cellphone rang in court. The second story was the federal Sixth Circuit upholding a 30-day contempt sentence for a courtroom spectator … Read more
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been arrested in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings. CNN reports that he “lies in a hospital with a gunshot wound to the side of his neck, sedated and intubated,” but that he could be put on a “sedation holiday” and brought back to consciousness to be questioned. This raises several issues. … Read more