North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

In my most recent post, I noted that a law enforcement officer who is fired will sometimes have a right to a “name clearing hearing” at which the officer may supply evidence contradicting negative information about the officer’s honesty or integrity that the agency released in connection with the officer’s termination. I ended that post by asking whether an officer who is fired in connection with a Giglio letter is entitled to such a hearing. Under most circumstances, the answer to that question is no. Keep reading for more details.

The General Assembly is working hard to fashion a budget for the upcoming biennium, but in the meantime, legislators are conducting other business. Of interest to this audience, H347, a bill that would legalize gambling on sports, appears to be very close to becoming law. Both chambers have passed the bill, but in slightly different versions that will need to be reconciled before final passage. Meanwhile, S3, a bill that would legalize medical marijuana, has passed the Senate and is working its way through House committees. Its fate in the House is uncertain but that is more than could be said in prior years, when similar measures have passed the Senate but have not received meaningful consideration in the House. Keep reading for more news.

Last April, the North Carolina Supreme Court decided two significant cases involving claims that prosecutors impermissibly exercised peremptory challenges against prospective black jurors based on their race:  State v. Hobbs, ___ N.C. ___, 884 S.E.2d 639 (2023) (Hobbs II), and State v. Campbell, ___ N.C. ___884 S.E.2d 674 (2023). This post reviews the framework for the review undertaken by the trial courts in those cases and the state supreme court’s opinions.

There have been some bumps in the road in the rollout of eCourts, the new electronic platform the court system is using in a handful of pilot counties for filing and case management. Now WRAL reports that a class action lawsuit has been filed alleging that the system “is keeping people in jail longer than they should be, and led to hundreds of people being arrested for things they did not do.” For example, the plaintiffs contend that “a Wake County woman was arrested multiple times on the same warrant for charges that were dismissed by a judge.” The Administrative Office of the Courts is not a named defendant but stated in the article that it has “not substantiated that any allegations of wrongful arrest or incarceration was caused” by the new system. Keep reading for more news.

Many, perhaps most, law enforcement officers in North Carolina are at will employees. As the saying goes, they may be fired for any reason or for no reason. But when such an officer is fired for malfeasance, and that reason is made public such that potential future employers may be aware of it, the officer may be entitled to a “name clearing hearing” at which he or she can dispute the basis for the termination.

The current news seems to be full of reports of threats against schools. A search of the WRAL website for stories on school threats reveals at least five discrete stories on threats against North Carolina schools in May alone. How can schools and law enforcement be prepared to respond to, and perhaps even prevent, threats against student safety? The National Threat Assessment Center of the United States Secret Service (NTAC) has been researching that topic for over 20 years. The results are consistent. Schools that have an effective threat assessment structure in place, casting a wide net to effectively identify youth along a continuum of need and offering a range of responses, are best positioned to address threats and prevent school violence.

A Wake County couple was arrested last week on animal cruelty charges for poisoning three dogs belonging to a neighbor. Ironically, the husband was a donor and board member of a local dog rescue. The rescue group has since announced on Facebook that he has voluntarily resigned. Keep reading for more news.

In U.S. Supreme Court news, the Court recently stayed the execution of Richard Glossip. Mr. Glossip has spent 26 years on death row in Oklahoma. This was his ninth scheduled execution date. The state Attorney General agreed with Mr. Glossip that a stay was appropriate, categorizing the sentence as a “grave injustice” amid questions about the integrity of the conviction. The stay was obtained from the Court after the state parole board declined to recommend clemency and other state remedies were exhausted. Read on for more criminal law news.

Suppose that a police officer in a North Carolina city shoots and kills a person in an encounter that began with a traffic stop. There is extensive media coverage of the shooting. The mother of the person who died tells reporters that her son was driving home from work and never made it home. She describes her son as “a hard-working boy who never caused trouble for anybody.” The police chief has seen the recording from the officer’s body-worn camera. That footage shows the suspect jumping from his car and pointing a gun at the officer. The police chief wants to provide a copy of the recording to local reporters. May she do so?

The week began with news that one of the men accused of murder in the death of Wake County Sheriff Deputy Ned Byrd had escaped from a Virginia jail early Sunday morning. Alder Alfonso Marin-Sotelo was being held at the Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville, Virginia on federal gun charges when he escaped around 1 a.m. Another inmate, Bruce Callahan, who also has North Carolina connections, escaped late Sunday night.

Unfortunately, jail staff did not notice that either inmate was missing until after 3 a.m. Monday, giving Marin-Sotelo more than a day’s head start. The FBI joined the search Monday and promptly arrested Marin-Sotelo’s sister in High Point alleging that she paid someone to leave in the jail parking lot the getaway car that Marin-Sotelo used to flee the area.

Yesterday Marin-Sotelo was captured by Mexican authorities in Guerrero, more than 2,400 miles from Farmville, Va. He now faces federal charges for escape in addition to the pending state charge for murder. Callahan, who was convicted of federal drug charges, is still at large.