North Carolina Criminal Law

The National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendation that states lower their per se blood alcohol concentrations for impaired driving from 0.08 to 0.05 grabbed headlines last week. But the BAC reduction […]

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[Editor’s Note: My colleague Frayda Bluestein is the author of this post, which she wrote for the School of Government’s blog about local government law. Because she’s not a regular […]

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The American Psychiatric Association is about to release the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, commonly abbreviated DSM-V and pronounced “DSM five.” This is important to criminal […]

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There was lots of news this week about judges new and old, so let’s start with that, then move on to the rest: Jeff Hunt, until now the elected district […]

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Although the number of capitally-tried cases has declined in recent years, capital cases remain important, complex, and hotly contested. So I’m happy to announce that a new edition of the […]

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Certainly the most shocking story of the week comes from Cleveland, where Ariel Castro has been charged with abducting three women, sexually abusing them, and holding them captive for ten […]

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Whether a suspect refused to submit to a breath test is a hotly contested issue in many impaired driving cases. That determination is critical to two proceedings: the administrative proceeding […]

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I recently finished Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s autobiography, My Beloved World. It’s a terrific book and an interesting companion to another outstanding Supreme Court memoir, Justice Clarence Thomas’s My Grandfather’s Son. […]

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This week, the General Assembly ratified SB 117, or Lily’s Law, which adds the following provision to the murder statute, G.S. 14-17: “For the purposes of this section, it shall […]

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Potentially capital federal charges have been filed against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in connection with the Boston marathon bombings. The filing of charges led to an initial appearance – in the hospital […]

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