North Carolina Criminal Law

Over the past two weeks there have been several developments related to the murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955. Till, who was Black, was 14 years old at […]

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Shinzo Abe, former Prime Minister of Japan, was shot and killed last week. News reports suggest that the man who killed him used a crude homemade gun. How are homemade […]

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Once again, the leading news story of the week is a mass shooting. This one occurred on Monday during a Fourth of July celebration in Highland Park, Illinois, a neighborhood […]

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Yesterday, Justice Stephen Breyer officially resigned his seat on the Supreme Court of the United States after 28 years of service. Justice Breyer, universally described as a kind and humble […]

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This post summarizes cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on June 23, 2022. The cases are principally criminal law adjacent, but as appropriate may be added […]

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One of the many unique features of the juvenile justice system is the law related to the permissible uses of detention. Called secure custody in the Juvenile Code, placement of […]

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It is hard to find good help these days, with unemployment low and employers competing fiercely for workers. It’s well known that law enforcement agencies are having trouble recruiting sworn […]

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This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the Supreme Court of North Carolina released on June 17, 2022. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free […]

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Many Americans have been paying close attention to the proceedings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Among the interested observers […]

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My local public library recently acquired a copy of Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison by Daniel Genis. It’s a memoir of the author’s ten years in […]

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