North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

[Editor’s note: John is the author of The Law of Self-Defense in North Carolina, an in-depth analysis of North Carolina’s approach to the use of defensive force. It’s available for […]

The crime of maintaining a dwelling has four elements. To be guilty, a person must: (1)  knowingly (2)  keep or maintain (3)  a store, shop, warehouse, dwelling house, building, vehicle, […]

What a strange week. London’s burning, and almost 15,000 young Britons have been taken into custody; the stock market’s gone unhinged; and weirdest of all, one of the top professional […]

The stock market dropped like a rock yesterday, but it shouldn’t take famous litigator David Boies long to make up his losses. He’s just increased his billing rate to $1,220 […]

The grim recent news out of Norway has spawned interesting commentary this week. The New York Times summarizes the basic facts: “at least 76 people were killed in the bombing […]

G.S. 14-415.1 makes it unlawful for “any person who has been convicted of a felony to . . . possess . . . any firearm,” with limited exceptions. In State […]

Although the furor about the Casey Anthony trial has generally died down, I am going back to the well one more time, because of this New York Times story. Briefly, […]

Earlier this month, the court of appeals decided State v. Joe, __ N.C. App. __ (2011) (Stephens, J.). A Winston-Salem officer was patrolling a drug-infested apartment complex at 2:00 in […]

TV news broadcasts often start with sensational celebrity news that may not be tremendously substantive. I’ll follow suit and highlight this AP profile of Casey Anthony defense lawyer Jose Baez. […]

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin has this post about Caylee’s Law. Briefly, legislation has been introduced in many states that would make it a crime to fail to […]