North Carolina Criminal Law

As a general rule, some decisions in the course of a criminal trial are made by the defendant and others are made by defense counsel. A defendant decides, for example, […]

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Former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky has been charged with sexually assaulting eight young boys between 1994 and 2009. The principal New York Times story is here. ESPN’s coverage […]

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As blog readers well know, the new Crawford confrontation clause rule provides that absent an exception or a waiver of rights, testimonial hearsay statements of a declarant who does not […]

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As I mentioned in a prior post, the Justice Reinvestment Act (S.L. 2011-192) creates a new set of “community and intermediate probation conditions” that can be ordered in any Structured […]

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On Halloween, I was dressed up as a sheep, trick or treating with my daughter, Little Bo Peep. Fortunately, serious legal business was being conducted elsewhere: the Supreme Court heard […]

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When analysts from the Council of State Governments studied North Carolina’s sentencing laws and correctional system, one of their key findings was that revoked probationers account for a lot of […]

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Police officers, city and county attorneys, private citizens and others frequently inquire about the circumstances under which the owner of private property may arrange for a vehicle parked on that […]

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An indictment defect is a boon for the defense and a disaster for the prosecution. Simply put an indictment is defective when it fails to allege an essential element of […]

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Want to frighten your 16 or 17-year-old this Halloween?  Tell her that if she is charged with speeding more than 15 mph over the speed limit, she’ll be arrested and […]

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In response to my recent post (here) about waivers of counsel, a number of you emailed asking me to write about forfeiture of the right to counsel. Your wish is […]

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