January 19, 2012
In the last in this series of posts on pretrial release I’ll address two issues that continue to create problems for judicial officials: defendants who refuse to identify themselves and […]
January 17, 2012
In a post here, I listed my top five indictment errors. The number one error was misstating the victim’s name in an indictment charging larceny or a related crime interfering […]
January 11, 2012
Part I of this post ended by noting that, like the racing forfeiture provisions in G.S. 20-141.3—and unlike the DWI seizure and forfeiture laws—the new felony speeding to elude seizure […]
January 10, 2012
My nomination for catchiest short title of the 2011 legislative session goes to House Bill 427, enrolled and chaptered as S.L. 2011-271, and short-titled “Run and You’re Done.” The aptly […]
January 9, 2012
As a general rule, and subject to local bond policy, the law gives judicial officials a great deal of discretion to determine the appropriate conditions of pretrial release. In some […]
January 5, 2012
NCAWARE is an acronym for the North CArolina WArrant REpository. It is the computer system that is used by judicial officials, usually magistrates, to create criminal process documents such as […]
January 3, 2012
In my first post in this series, I addressed the issue of who is entitled to conditions of pretrial release. In this post, I’ll address who can set conditions and […]
December 19, 2011
Pretrial release didn’t used to be complicated. But over the last 10 years or so that’s changed, with the addition of exceptions and special procedures. In a series of posts, […]
December 1, 2011
It’s December 1, and a lot of new laws (the News & Observer counts 35) come into effect today. Among them is the Justice Reinvestment Act—or at least portions of […]
November 30, 2011
Criminal defendants, especially those sentenced to long prison terms, sometimes try to attack their convictions and sentences by claiming that their trial lawyers provided ineffective assistance of counsel. The state […]