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Child Advocacy Centers, Child Medical Evaluations, and Multidisciplinary Team Information Sharing: New Law in Effect as of July 1

Across North Carolina, there are 55 child advocacy centers (CACs) providing services to children who have experienced maltreatment, including physical or sexual abuse.  Local law enforcement agencies and county departments of social services often coordinate with CACs to conduct child medical evaluations and forensic interviews in investigations of child maltreatment. On July 1, 2024, a … Read more

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News Roundup

Last week, Louisiana became the first state to allow surgical castration as punishment for sex crimes against children. Effective August 1, the legislation gives Louisiana judges the option to sentence someone to surgical castration after the person has been convicted of certain aggravated sex crimes — including rape, incest and molestation — against a child under 13. The punishment is not a mandatory one, and a judge will be able to order the punishment at his or her discretion.

According to this AP article, a handful of states, including Louisiana, California, Florida and Texas, have laws allowing for chemical castration for those guilty of certain sex crimes. In some of those states, offenders can instead opt for the surgical procedure, but no other state allows judges to impose surgical castration outright. Chemical castration uses medications that block testosterone production to decrease sex drive. Surgical castration is a much more invasive procedure that involves the removal of both testicles or ovaries.

Proponents of the law hope the new possible punishment will deter people from committing sex crimes against children. Opponents argue that it is “cruel and unusual” punishment in violation of the U.S. Constitution and that it is sure to face legal challenges.

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The Court’s Obligation to Determine Disposition in a Delinquency Matter

Is the court bound to order a certain disposition in a delinquency matter when the juvenile and the prosecutor agree to that disposition as part of an agreement? The short answer is no. The Juvenile Code requires the court to engage in certain procedures, to consider certain factors, and to order disposition in accord with certain parameters when developing and ordering a delinquency disposition. The mandates on the court cannot be delegated to the parties and they are not optional. This post describes these mandates and explores the implications for dispositional outcomes that are agreed upon by the juvenile and the prosecutor.

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Confidential Informants, Motions to Reveal Identity, and Discovery: Part III, How to Handle the Video

This is Part III of a multi-part series on confidential informants. Earlier posts focused on the foundational concepts of U.S. v. Roviaro, 353 U.S. 53 (1957), here, and the applicable North Carolina statutes here. Today’s post explores the novel issues that arise as more and more confidential informant (“CI”) interactions are recorded on video.

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News Roundup

The biggest story in criminal law this week was undoubtedly the arrest of Justin Timberlake, former member of The Mickey Mouse Club and NSYNC, on charges of driving while intoxicated. A police officer in Sag Harbor, New York, reportedly observed a gray 2025 BMW run a stop sign, and when the officer pulled the car over, he found the Prince of Pop Justin Timberlake (the title is shared with Justin Bieber and Bruno Mars) behind the wheel. According to the arrest report filed Tuesday, Timberlake had bloodshot eyes and a strong odor of alcohol on his breath and was unsteady on his feet. He performed poorly on field sobriety tests. NBC News reports that Timberlake told the officer he had one martini. His wife Jessica Biel is reportedly not happy about her husband’s arrest.

Read on for more criminal law news.

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News Roundup

As AP News reports, Hunter Biden, the son of President Biden, was convicted of three felony offenses in a federal court in Delaware this week. The convictions include making a false statement to a licensed gun dealer, making false statements on the firearm purchase application form, and illegal possession of a gun. The younger Biden falsely represented that he was not disqualified as an unlawful user of controlled substances (one of the disqualifying grounds for gun possession under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3)). Biden is expected to appeal. One of his arguments in post-trial proceedings will be a challenge under the Second Amendment to the federal ban on gun possession by unlawful drug users. The trial court rejected a facial challenge to the law in pretrial proceedings but reserved judgment on the argument that the law was unconstitutional as applied to Mr. Biden under New York Rifle and Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). CNN has a report on this aspect of the case, here. As Shea reported in last week’s News Roundup, this is the first of two criminal trials faced by the president’s son. An additional federal trial in California on alleged tax crimes is expected to occur in September. Read on for more criminal law news.

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News Roundup

Three years ago, the North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. Corbett, 2021-NCSC-18, ___ N.C. ___, 855 S.E.2d 228, 252 (2021), affirmed the court of appeals’ reversal of the defendants’ convictions for second degree murder. The case garnered national and international attention. The victim, Jason Corbett, was a citizen of Ireland, who had relocated to Davidson County, North Carolina, in 2011 following the 2006 death of his first wife, who was the mother of his two children. Jason moved to North Carolina with his two children and his then-romantic partner, Molly Martens, who had been his children’s au pair in Ireland. Jason and Molly married later that year.

Molly’s parents, Thomas and Sharon Martens, who lived in Tennessee, visited the Corbett home on August 1, 2015. Thomas, a retired FBI agent and former attorney, testified that he awoke to the sounds of a struggle in the middle of the night and discovered Jason choking Molly. Thomas said he attempted to stop Jason by hitting him with an aluminum baseball bat. Molly also hit Jason with a brick paver. Jason’s skull was fractured from multiple blows, and he died at the scene. Both Thomas and Molly were charged with murder. The North Carolina Supreme Court determined that the trial court erred by (1) excluding hearsay statements from the children that their father was abusive toward Molly and that their father had become angry that evening upon his daughter awakening him, and (2) by excluding testimony from Thomas that he heard Molly yell “don’t hurt my dad” during the altercation.

Molly and Thomas were released from prison on Thursday: Molly from the the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh and Thomas from the Caldwell Correctional Center in Lenoir. Following the state supreme court’s decision, each entered pleas to voluntary manslaughter and served about seven more months behind bars.

Keep reading for more criminal law news.

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Estimating Earnings Impact of Driver’s License Revocations in North Carolina

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In North Carolina, driver’s licenses are revoked for failure to appear in court (FTA) and failure to pay court-ordered monetary obligations (FTP).

Not having a valid driver’s license is at best an inconvenience—relying on others to drive to get groceries—but at worst can have a major impact on life—losing a job that requires driving.

To get a handle on the consequences of losing a license, we were asked to provide a high-level estimate of the earnings impact of revocations due to FTP or FTA.

The result? We found that the statewide estimated earnings loss in 2024 dollars one year after revocation is between $6.5 and $8.8 billion (Figure 1).

The North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles (NC DMV) reports that as of December 31, 2020, 996,000 people had active driver’s license revocations for FTA and FTP. These revocations occurred over time. To estimate earnings impact, we assume that about half of those people—500,000—were working at the time of the revocation and earning the North Carolina median wage ($42,095/year). Based on other research, we made two additional assumptions to assess the impact of revocation on earnings one year later. First, that 9% to 12% of people lost their jobs and were unemployed. And second, that those who were employed experienced an earnings reduction of 24% to 43%.

Even if we reduce the median wage to $30,000/year—to account for the fact that people with an FTA or FTP may earn less than the statewide median wage—the estimated earnings impact is between $4.6 and $6.3 billion.

Figure 1. Estimated earnings impact of revoking driver’s licenses for FTA and FTP

For details about how we computed this estimate, see the notes to our briefing paper here.

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News Roundup

Former President Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies in his “hush money” trial in New York yesterday, making him the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted of a crime. On their second day of deliberations, the jury found that Trump illegally falsified business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to an adult film star before the 2016 election. He could face up to four years in prison and a $5,000 fine for each count and is set to be sentenced on July 11.

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Confidential Informants, Motions to Reveal Identity, and Discovery: Part II, What Statutes Apply?

In Part I of a series of posts on confidential informants, I revisited the landmark case of U.S. v. Roviaro, which began when a Chicago police officer hid in the trunk of an informant’s car to listen in on a heroin deal. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the officer in the trunk was no substitute for the confidential informant (“CI”) in the driver’s seat and required disclosure of the CI’s identity to the defense. I also introduced the basic dichotomy set out in Roviaro: generally, where the CI is more of a tipster, the CI’s identity need not be revealed, but where the CI is an active participant, the defense is entitled to it. The constitutional underpinnings of this distinction, based on due process and confrontation principles, continue to guide courts today, although the analysis has evolved.

This second post will address the North Carolina statutes at play. These statutes complicate and refine the basic constitutional question of whether fundamental fairness requires the State to turn over the CI’s identity.

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