North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

In State v. Harbison, 315 N.C. 175 (1985), the North Carolina Supreme Court held that when defense counsel admits the defendant’s guilt to the jury without the defendant’s consent per se ineffective assistance of counsel occurs. The Harbison Court reasoned that when counsel admits guilt without consent, it is essentially the same as entering a guilty plea on the defendant’s behalf without the defendant’s consent. It concluded: “ineffective assistance of counsel, per se in violation of the Sixth Amendment, has been established in every criminal case in which the defendant’s counsel admits the defendant’s guilt to the jury without the defendant’s consent.” Id. at 180.

Suppose Defendant is charged with sex offense against a child. He knows that DSS previously investigated similar allegations made by the child against other people and heard that DSS found those charges to be unfounded. When Defendant subpoenas the records from DSS, the agency moves to quash. Is Defendant entitled to the records? The answer is: Sort of. On these facts, Defendant has a right to have the court do an in camera review of the records. If the court finds that they contain favorable, material evidence, it has to be turned over to the defendant. This post outlines the relevant law, which stems from a U.S. Supreme Court case called Pennsylvania v. Ritchie, 480 U.S. 39 (1987).

My daughter is awfully fond of this expression (when applied to one of her brothers, of course). Turns out it also is apropos for this week’s court of appeals decision […]

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 […]

On Friday, a panel of the court of appeals decided an interesting electronic sweepstakes case. The case is Sandhill Amusements, Inc. v. Sheriff of Onslow Co. It generally upheld a preliminary […]

I’ve been asked several times about the new requirement that facial challenges to the constitutionality of state statutes be heard by a three-judge panel in Wake County. Does the requirement […]

This fall, North Carolina voters will decide whether to amend the state constitution. The proposed amendment would allow, for the first time, bench trials for felonies in superior court. Neither […]

[Author’s note:  State v. Townsend was withdrawn and replaced by a subsequent opinion, available here.  The portion of the opinion discussed below was unchanged by the subsequent opinion.] No one gets […]

A national, empirical study of defenses found that the defense of entrapment arose in just 0.08% of cases, usually “to little avail.” Stephen G. Valdes, Frequency and Success: An Empirical […]

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 […]