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How Serious Is a “Serious Bodily Injury”?

Here’s a question for you: which of the following injuries is more serious?

  • The victim, a police officer injured while fighting with a suspect, “sustained puncture wounds [from bites] on his left forearm and right bicep.” The officer testified that the bites were extremely painful, and they caused “severe bruising and depressions, [and] permanent scarring . . . includ[ing] a large circle on his right bicep, ‘just over a half an inch to an inch in a circle’ with a ‘large depression[,]’ and ‘a deep ridge’ on his left arm. The officer experienced loss of sleep and extreme stress [and] had to be tested multiple times for communicable diseases.”
  • The victim, a six-year-old girl injured when her father “forcibly twisted” her leg until it broke, suffered a “spiral fracture” of her femur. A physician described such fractures as “incredibly painful,” and the child required morphine to control her discomfort. She was placed in traction and underwent surgery to place titanium rods in her leg. The surgery resulted in lifelong scars. The victim was in a cast for several weeks, and used a wheelchair and a walker during her recovery. She regained the full use of her leg in five to eight months, but had to repeat kindergarten as a result of missing so much school.

You can vote on the answer below. Once you have voted, read on to see how the court of appeals viewed these two scenarios.

Which injury was more serious?

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News Roundup

This week the Justice Department sued California Governor Jerry Brown and the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, alleging that certain recently enacted California immigration laws are unconstitutional. The New York Times says that the laws “restrict when and how local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officers.” The Justice Department’s position is that the laws “reflect a deliberate effort by California to obstruct the United States’ enforcement of federal immigration law.” Keep reading for more news.

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Relief Guide 2017

Expunging criminal record information can be like removing ants from under your refrigerator. Just when you think you’ve eliminated all the ants/information, there’s another trail. That’s how a talented attorney in this field described the process in her article of the same name here. It’s also an apt description for figuring out the legal requirements, procedures, and forms for obtaining an expunction, in North Carolina and elsewhere. Here’s my latest effort, the 2017 Guide to Relief from a Criminal Conviction in North Carolina.

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News Roundup

Last month, Jeff blogged about the backlog of rape kits in North Carolina and other jurisdictions across the country.  At the time of his post, there wasn’t a great deal of information available about the magnitude of the backlog in North Carolina, but Jeff noted that a 2017 law required law enforcement agencies to inventory their kits and report their findings to the State Crime Laboratory.  The Associated Press reported this week that the results of that process show that North Carolina has more than 15,000 untested kits.  At a press conference, Attorney General Josh Stein made proposals for testing the kits and tracking the status of kits collected in the future.  Keep reading for more news.

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March Madness in the Shadow of Alleged Criminal Corruption

I doubt it is much of an exaggeration to say that in every workplace in North Carolina this time of year, there is talk of basketball. College basketball, of course, and, more specifically, ACC basketball. The conversation in late February usually is about the second UNC/Duke game, first-place finishers in the conference, brackets, and which teams are on the bubble. But this week, the conversation wasn’t usual. Instead it was about which school’s current and former players got what benefits from whom and who knew about it. That conversation was spurred by last Friday’s Yahoo Sports report listing dozens of players from dozens of schools who may have received payments in violation of the NCAA’s amateurism rules. The report was based on reporters’ review of documents obtained by the FBI in connection with its “investigation into the underbelly of college basketball.” All of this caused me to wonder, aside from potential NCAA rules violations, what crimes are associated with the alleged payments to coaches, players, and player’s family members.

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Particularly Describing the Evidence to Be Seized under a Search Warrant

The Fourth Amendment states in part that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The reference to a particular description of the place to be searched and the things to be seized is called the particularity requirement. As it pertains to the things to be seized, the Supreme Court’s most famous exposition of the requirement is in Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192 (1927), where it opined that the requirement “makes general searches . . . impossible and prevents the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another.  As to what is to be taken, nothing is left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant.”

In practice, officers regularly seek search warrants with catchall provisions. For example, in a drug case, an officer may seek authorization to seize drugs, paraphernalia, customer lists, and “any and all other evidence connected to drug activity.” Are catchall statements like these consistent with the particularity requirement?

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News Roundup

The Durham Herald Sun reports that after District Court Judge Fred Battaglia acquitted one defendant and dismissed charges against two others allegedly involved in destroying a Confederate monument in Durham last year, Durham District Attorney Roger Echols announced that his office was dropping all remaining charges arising from the incident.  Echols said that because the evidence against the remaining defendants was the same as that introduced in the trials this week, it would be a misuse of state resources to continue to pursue the prosecutions.  Keep reading for more news.

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