North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

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 the time. A White woman named Carolyn Bryant Donham apparently reported that he whistled at her, grabbed her, and propositioned her while she was in a grocery store. Ms. Donham’s then-husband and another White man responded to her allegations by abducting Till from his home at gunpoint and killing him. The men were charged with murder, were acquitted by an all-White jury, and later admitted culpability in media interviews. Durham historian Timothy Tyson wrote about the incident in his 2017 book The Blood of Emmett Till.

Two weeks ago, the New York Times reported on the discovery of a 1955 kidnapping warrant for Ms. Donham, who is in her 80s and apparently lives here in North Carolina. The arrest warrant is technically still valid but the experts interviewed by the Times say it is unlikely to be served without a current examination of the potential merits of the case.

Speaking of which, the Associated Press reported yesterday on its review of an unpublished 99-page memoir by Ms. Donham. The memoir was provided to the AP by Mr. Tyson, who had obtained the document from Ms. Donham but “placed the manuscript in an archive at the University of North Carolina with the agreement that it not be made public for decades.” He decided to break the agreement after the Times story noted above. According to the AP story, Ms. Donham’s memoir generally portrays herself as attempting to prevent harm from coming to Till, but also contradicts some of her previous statements and is inconsistent with other evidence in the case, raising questions about her credibility. Stay tuned for further developments and keep reading for more news.

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 guns regulated here?

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 dubbed Chicago’s “Mayberry.” The gunman reportedly shot from a rooftop, killing seven people and wounding more than 30 others. Officials recovered 83 bullet casings from the scene. Twenty-one-year-old Robert Crimo III has been arrested in connection with the shootings and has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. Keep reading for more news.

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 person, was one of the more liberal members of the current Court on criminal justice matters. In his famous dissent in Glossip v. Gross, 576 U.S. 863 (2015), he argued that the death penalty “in and of itself” constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. His replacement and former law clerk, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, was sworn in by Chief Justice Roberts. ABC news has more details here, including a lovely picture of Justices Breyer and Brown Jackson together. Keep reading for more news.

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 to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present. Shea Denning prepared the summary of Nance v. Ward, and I prepared the others.

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 a juvenile in detention is permitted only when specifically authorized by statute. This post reviews the legally allowable circumstances for the use of juvenile detention. If the situation of a particular juvenile does not match any of these circumstances, then the juvenile cannot be ordered to be held in a detention facility. Note that detention applies only to juveniles who are the subject of delinquency or undisciplined proceedings and is never permitted in an abuse, neglect, or dependency action.

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 officers, but WFMY reports here that jails are having trouble hiring enough detention officers as well. In Forsyth County, 77 out of 249 positions are vacant. Other counties are also in dire straits. Corrections 1 noted a few weeks ago that Mecklenburg County was short more than 100 detention officers. Keep reading for more news.

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 and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present. These summaries were prepared by School of Government Legal Research Associate Alex Phipps, except for the summaries of Conner (prepared by Shea Denning) and Kelliher (prepared by Jamie Markham).

Many Americans have been paying close attention to the proceedings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol. Among the interested observers are federal prosecutors at the United States Department of Justice, who are increasingly frustrated with the Committee’s refusal to provide DOJ with transcripts of the Committee’s witness interviews. Politico reports here that DOJ thinks the transcripts may be useful in its effort to prosecute those who engaged in criminal activity during the attack. DOJ also views the Committee’s selective release of transcripts during televised hearings as fueling defense arguments that the Committee is making it impossible for defendant to get a fair trial.

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 the New York prison system. I found it interesting, but ultimately not completely successful.