The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece last Friday that, according to the headline, offered “A Simple Fix For Drunken Driving.” I was intrigued because, frankly, I didn’t think there was one. As it turns out, the headline over-promises. The author, Stanford University psychiatry professor Keith Humphreys, does not purport to have a solution that ends impaired driving once and for all. Instead, Dr. Humphreys reports on the “stunning” results of South Dakota’s “absurdly simple” 24/7 sobriety program for repeat DWI offenders.
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School of Government Launches New Website
The School of Government has just launched a redesigned website. It’s better looking, plays well with mobile devices, and is driven more by searches than by click-through navigation. I’m sure it has plenty of kinks that we will need to work out but it is a major effort to revamp the website in accordance with current best practices and usage patterns.
Book Review: Unfair
I’ve just finished Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Justice by Drexel University law professor Adam Benafordo. The reviews I’ve seen online have been positive. For example, the Boston Globe opines that the book “succinctly and persuasively recounts cutting-edge research testifying to the faulty and inaccurate procedures that underpin virtually all aspects of our criminal justice system.” And the book has attracted enough attention for Professor Benafordo to be interviewed on NPR’s hit show Fresh Air. This post briefly summarizes the book and then offers a few thoughts about it.
News Roundup
It’s a bird, it’s a plane . . . no, it’s a drone over the skies of North Carolina. And soon it may be operated by law enforcement. The News and Observer reports that the General Assembly is poised to enact S 446, which flew through the House yesterday and has been returned to the Senate for concurrence with relatively minor amendments. The bill repeals the prohibition on governmental use of unmanned aircraft enacted in 2013 and authorizes the State’s Chief Information Officer to approve the procurement and operation of unmanned aircraft systems by State agencies and local governments.
News Roundup
The trial of the week this week is in Charlotte, where former CMPD officer Randall Kerrick is charged with voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of former college football player Jonathan Ferrell. The case has attracted some national attention, as evidenced by the CNN coverage here, perhaps in part because Kerrick is white and Ferrell was black. The parties disagree about the extent of the danger posed by Ferrell when he ran towards, and made contact with, Kerrick.
Sentencing Whiteboard: Active Sentences for DWI
Do DWI sentences really get cut in half? Can DWI inmates be paroled? What happens when the minimum and maximum sentence for a DWI are the same? These questions and more are answered in today’s video post.
Scuffling Over Merchandise
Here’s a fact pattern that comes up from time to time: Dan walks into a store, takes some merchandise, and leaves without paying for it. Eric, a store employee, sees Dan stealing the merchandise. He follows Dan into the parking lot and confronts him. A scuffle ensues. What’s the proper charge?
Buyer’s Remorse: Withdrawing from a Plea Agreement
Sometimes a party to a plea agreement has buyer’s remorse and wants to get out of the deal. The standard for evaluating such a request varies, depending on when the motion is made.
General Assembly Approves Relief from the Endless Loop of License Revocation
Author’s note: The North Carolina Drivers License Restoration Act was enacted in S.L. 2015-186. The Technical Corrections Act, S.L. 2015-264, rewrote the earlier act’s effective date to render it applicable to offenses committed on or after December 1, 2015. Other clarifications made by the Technical Corrections Act are discussed here.
The General Assembly ratified the North Carolina Drivers License Restoration Act last week and submitted it to the Governor. If the act becomes law, it will relieve defendants convicted of certain types of driving while license revoked of the mandatory additional license revocation that has historically followed such convictions. Proponents for a change in the law argued that people convicted of driving while license revoked under current law drove during the revocation period out of necessity and then became locked in an unending cycle of license revocation.