Alford Pleas (April 13, 2010)
Jeff Welty
Someone asked me recently why so many defendants enter Alford pleas in North Carolina. I’ve wondered the same thing. When I was in private practice, I worked mostly in federal […]
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April 13, 2010
Someone asked me recently why so many defendants enter Alford pleas in North Carolina. I’ve wondered the same thing. When I was in private practice, I worked mostly in federal […]
READ POST "Alford Pleas (April 13, 2010)"April 5, 2010
Last month, the North Carolina court of appeals decided State v. Graves, No. COA09-595 (March 16, 2010), a case involving the defendant’s appeal from his convictions for felony speeding to […]
READ POST "DWLR Based upon an Ignition Interlock Violation (April 5, 2010)"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, […]
READ POST "A New Constitutional Mandate for Defense Counsel (April 1, 2010)"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 […]
READ POST "Fair Cross Section (March 31, 2010)"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 […]
READ POST "Officers Exposed to Communicable Diseases (March 25, 2010)"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 […]
READ POST "Interstate Probation Cases (March 22, 2010)"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 […]
READ POST "Must the State Inform the Defense When a Witness Goes Missing? (March 10, 2010)"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 […]
READ POST "Incompetent to Serve a Sentence? (March 9, 2010)"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 […]
READ POST "No Privilege for You (March 4, 2010)"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 […]
READ POST "Jury Selection and Attorneys as Agents of Their Clients (March 2, 2010)"