April 1, 2010
by School of Government Immigration Law Specialist Sejal Zota Is defense counsel constitutionally obligated to inform a noncitizen criminal defendant whether his guilty plea carries a risk of deportation? Yesterday, […]
March 31, 2010
Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court decided Berghuis v. Smith, a case in which the defendant claimed that the pool from which his jury was selected was not a fair […]
March 25, 2010
I’ve been a little under the weather this week, so I thought I’d do a post about communicable diseases. One question that comes up frequently is whether an arrestee can […]
March 22, 2010
Article 1, section 10 of the Constitution—the Compacts Clause—authorizes two or more states to enter into agreements or compacts with one another, provided they have the consent of Congress. Dozens […]
March 10, 2010
I blogged recently about whether the state is obligated to produce its witnesses’ criminal records in discovery. (Recall that the answer is no, in North Carolina, with some exceptions.) Another […]
March 9, 2010
In Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986), the Supreme Court held that “the Eighth Amendment prohibits a State from carrying out a sentence of death upon a prisoner who […]
March 4, 2010
Among the most frequently asked motor vehicle law questions is whether a person convicted of impaired driving for an offense that occurred when the person was less than 21 years […]
March 2, 2010
Who has the final say about whether to strike a prospective juror – the defendant or his lawyer? That’s the question addressed by the court of appeals today in State […]
March 1, 2010
Defendants sometimes argue, usually in sexual assault cases, that the complaining witness should not be called a “victim” during court proceedings. The basis of the argument is that using that […]
February 23, 2010
Recall from yesterday’s post that we are considering the following scenario: Jay Jones is charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and given an unsecured bond of $1,000. He is convicted […]