North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

At the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh jurors’ names were kept private. So, too, in the corruption trials of former governors Edwin Edwards of Louisiana and Rod Blagojevich […]

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Last July, former Wake County district court judge Kristin Ruth pled guilty to willfully failing to discharge the duties of her office, a misdemeanor offense, for her role in signing […]

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In addition to contributing to this blog, I publish summaries of N.C. appellate court and U.S. Supreme Court decisions through my Criminal Law Listserv (you can sign up for those […]

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In 2012, a person on supervised probation for an offense that occurred before December 1, 2011 moves to another state without permission. Months later he is arrested there and brought […]

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Jeff previously posted his “cocktail party review” of significant criminal law legislation passed this year by the North Carolina General Assembly, or at least legislation people might be interested in […]

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About a year and a half ago I did a blog post here about trial in the defendant’s absence. The recent Court of Appeals case, State v. Anderson, suggests that […]

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Jeff wrote earlier this week about the court of appeals’ opinion in State v. Osterhoudt (August 21, 2012).  Jeff’s post dealt with the court’s substantive analysis of whether the police […]

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A probation violation must be willful. In this prior post I wrote about the burden-shifting process in which the State must prove to the court’s reasonable satisfaction that a violation […]

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A fatal defect in an indictment occurs when the indictment fails to allege an essential element of the crime charged. A fatal variance, by contrast, occurs when the facts brought […]

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A criminal indictment must allege an offense date. G.S. 15A-924(a)(4) provides that a criminal pleading must contain “[a] statement or cross reference in each count indicating that the offense charged […]

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