North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

I’m on vacation this week, so my blogging will be a little lighter fare than usual. Today, I thought I’d call attention to this article in the FBI Law Enforcement […]

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The court of appeals recently decided State v. Dark. It’s a concise opinion that summarizes and applies the black-letter law on an issue that comes up regularly: when must the […]

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As I have discussed in a number of prior posts [editor’s note: the most recent of those posts is here], the North Carolina courts have been struggling with whether the […]

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There’s a recurrent discovery issue in child pornography cases. Generally, it goes like this: the defendant is arrested and charged with a child pornography offense. The prosecution contends that the […]

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I may be the only person in America who has never seen an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Nonetheless, I am interested in the so-called CSI effect. As The […]

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On June 1, 2010, the N.C. Court of Appeals applied Arizona v. Gant in State v. Johnson and held that the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when the police […]

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Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court decided Berghuis v. Thompkins, an important Miranda case. (There are other issues in the case, too, but this post will focus on the Miranda […]

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The News and Observer reports today on “a proposal to collect DNA from suspects when they are arrested for felonies or violent crimes.” The bill in question is H1403, and […]

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In the game show Name that Tune, contestants had to identify song titles correctly in order to win cash prizes. In criminal pleadings in North Carolina, the state must identify […]

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In a recent post, I suggested that by establishing a good foundation, the State may be able to overcome a confrontation clause objection to its use a substitute analyst in […]

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