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This post summarizes criminal and related decisions published by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during August 2022. Cases of interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous Fourth Circuit case summaries are available here.

“An Iowa teenage sex trafficking victim who stabbed her rapist to death was sentenced by a judge on Tuesday to five years of closely supervised probation and must pay $150,000 restitution to her abuser’s family.” So reports Fox News here. The teen was a 15-year-old runaway when she began being trafficked for sex. She was allegedly forced at knifepoint to have sex with the man she killed. He fell asleep after the rape, then she stabbed him 37 times. She was charged with first-degree murder but pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter. The judge noted that the restitution payment was mandatory under state law. CNN has this follow-up story, which says that the teen “is just one of several teenagers – often of color – who have been legally penalized or convicted of killing their sex trafficker or assaulter in recent years in the US.” It also notes that a GoFundMe campaign has raised over $388,000 for the young woman in question.

Queen Elizabeth II died this week. When she took the throne, Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Harry Truman was the President of the United States. She was truly an institution. And, to draw at least a slight connection to criminal law, she was an institution that could not be prosecuted. As The Guardian explains here, British law provides near-total immunity to the monarch. King Charles now enjoys that protection. Read on for more news.

The news story I pondered the most this week was this AP article entitled Watering While Black. It explores the arrest of a Black pastor in Alabama who was tending a neighbor’s flowers while the neighbor was away. A third neighbor called the police, seemingly failing to recognize the pastor even though he had lived on the same street for years. Officers responded and soon got sideways with the pastor. The whole situation fell apart through a series of faulty inferences and failed communications that put me in mind of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Talking to Strangers. Read on for more news.

Kenly is a small town with a population just under 2,000. It made national news recently when the chief and all the full-time officers in the Kenly Police Department resigned. It sounds like Kenly is planning to rebuild its police department. But that isn’t mandatory. For now, the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office is providing law enforcement services in Kenly, and Kenly could choose to do without a police department on a permanent basis. In fact, there are hundreds of municipalities in North Carolina that don’t have their own police departments. This post highlights some of the considerations for small towns thinking about whether or not to have a police department.

On Monday, a grand jury in Wake County returned a presentment against Attorney General Josh Stein and two people affiliated with his 2020 electoral campaign. The presentment asked the Wake County District Attorney to “submit for grand jury consideration an indictment” charging a violation of G.S. 163-274(a)(9), which makes it a misdemeanor to “publish . . . derogatory reports with reference to any candidate in any primary or election, knowing such report to be false or in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity, when such report is calculated or intended to affect the chances of such candidate for nomination or election.” The basis of the presentment is a television ad run by Attorney General Stein’s campaign during the 2020 election cycle, accusing Stein’s opponent, Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill, of leaving “1,500 rape kits on a shelf.” On Tuesday, a divided panel of the Fourth Circuit enjoined further state court proceedings pending resolution of a federal lawsuit filed by the Attorney General’s campaign and related parties, claiming that the statute at issue violates the First Amendment. The issuance of the injunction pending appeal indicates that the panel believes the plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits, but the matter is to be briefed expeditiously and argued in December. Keep reading for more news.

The legal requirement for sight and sound separation between juveniles and adult inmates states that “juveniles alleged to be or found to be delinquent or juveniles within the purview of paragraph (11) will not be detained or confined in any institution in which they have sight or sound contact with adult inmates.” 34 U.S.C.A. §11133(a)(12)(A). It may be somewhat intuitive to understand how this requirement applies in settings where adults are detained for long periods of time—such as jails and lockups. The application of this requirement in court holding facilities may be less intuitive. This post explains how sight and sound separation applies in the context of the courthouse.

I wrote last week about the different state and federal approaches to sealing search warrants and related documents. It was a timely topic in light of the search warrant the FBI obtained for former President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago. That search warrant and the inventory of items seized from former President Trump’s home have already been unsealed, but the affidavit supporting the issuance of the warrant has not. This week, the magistrate judge who issued the warrant heard arguments about whether the affidavit should be made public as well. ABC11 reports here that the judge plans to release at least a redacted version of the affidavit. The Department of Justice argued that the affidavit provides a road map to its investigation. It has a week to submit proposed redactions to the court. Keep reading for more news.

I’m pleased to announce that a new project, the North Carolina Criminal Debrief Podcast, is up and running. As you might guess, the podcast focuses on criminal law issues affecting […]

Matthew Fishman, a sergeant in the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, was shot and killed this week while attempting to serve involuntary commitment papers. He leaves behind a wife and two children, as well as many other friends and family members. Two other deputies were also shot but will survive. The man they were trying to serve shot and killed himself before a SWAT team entered his home. ABC11 has the story here. Read on for more, and less tragic, news.