A UNC School of Government Blog
The second most interesting news story of the past couple of days is a New York Times piece about the looming demise of some of the nation’s biggest law firms. Wait, you mean the business model of paying brand-new law school graduates $160,000 per year to review documents isn’t working? But the most interesting news … Read more
Editor’s note: A previous post concerning a United States Supreme Court case about post-conviction DNA testing appears here. Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of calls about requests for post-conviction DNA testing. Since there seems to be a bit of confusion about how these requests should be made and handled, I thought it might be … Read more
Suppose that an eyewitness testifies for the state on direct examination that he saw the defendant snatch an old woman’s purse and run off. The defense cross-examines the witness about whether he’d used drugs shortly before the crime took place, hoping to show that the witness’s perception was impaired. If the witness asserts his Fifth … Read more
The Court of Appeals released several opinions yesterday. The most significant may be State v. Wallace, an assault case involving remarkable and disturbing facts and difficult legal questions. The victim, a 79-year-old man, and one of the defendants, a 66-year-old woman, became neighbors when the victim sold the defendant some of his land. A boundary … Read more
by School of Government faculty members Jamie Markham and Alyson Grine Suppose Ronald is convicted of six counts of communicating threats, a Class 1 misdemeanor. Ronald has three prior convictions, making him prior conviction level II. The facts are bad and the sentencing judge wants to max Ronald out with the longest sentence allowable. What … Read more
Update: Another statistical analysis of Judge Sotomayor’s work in criminal cases appears here. The conclusion — that she’s pretty close to the middle of the road — is the same as the conclusion in the McClatchy story I referenced originally, but the figures are very different, showing that she has ruled in favor of the … Read more
Last week the court of appeals decided State v. Swann, concluding (among other things) that a prosecutor’s statement alone is insufficient to support a restitution award. A lot of recent cases have reached the same conclusion – State v. Replogle, 181 N.C. App. 579 (2007), State v. Calvino, 179 N.C. App. 219 (2006), and State … Read more
Can a lay witness testify that she could tell just by looking at a substance that it was, in fact, a controlled substance? (Let’s assume the witness has extensive dealings with drugs and therefore a basis of personal knowledge, and leave aside the credibility issues that may arise if she has been an enthusiastic consumer … Read more
Two big developments at the United States Supreme Court. First, President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter. The New York Times story is here, some News and Observer coverage is here, and SCOTUSblog has some interesting tidbits here. This post will focus not on Judge Sotomayor — who, most think, won’t … Read more
Once in a while, someone requests a post on a particular topic. Today’s post is in response to such a request — which, as I understand it, is not based on any particular pending case. It involves the following scenario: an officer who works in a college town sees a young person walking out of … Read more