February 22, 2022
Were the constitutional rights of defendants who were prosecuted as adults in criminal court for offenses that they committed at ages 16 or 17, and prior to December 1, 2019, violated because the jurisdictional changes under raise the age were not retroactive? The North Carolina Court of Appeals does not think so. The decision in State v. Garrett, 2021-NCCOA-591, answers this question.
February 22, 2022
Law enforcement officers have a duty to intervene when they have an opportunity to prevent another officer from using unlawful force. That duty comes from multiple sources, including federal constitutional law, a new state statute, and, in some cases, agency policy. But what does the duty require in practice? Is verbal intervention enough, or must the officer attempt to intercede physically? What if the officer has competing obligations, such as keeping control of an unruly scene? And what should an officer do if he or she isn’t sure whether the amount of force another officer is using is appropriate? This post will address how officers and agencies might operationalize the duty to intervene.
February 18, 2022
The Associated press reports that the families of nine victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have settled a lawsuit against Remington Arms for $73 million. The suit alleged that Remington marketed the AR-15 style assault rifle used in the shooting in a dangerous manner by promoting its destructive capability and associating it with violence. Twenty-six people were killed at Sandy Hook in 2012 by a lone gunman; twenty of the victims were young children.
February 16, 2022
February 11, 2022
As WCYB reports, two men who escaped from the Sullivan County Jail in Tennessee died after a motor vehicle chase across North Carolina ended in a crash in Brunswick County earlier this week. Escapees Tobias Carr and Timothy Sarver allegedly were involved in a robbery at a convenience store in Onslow County and then were chased across several North Carolina jurisdictions before their vehicle was disabled and crashed. Precise details of the incident were unavailable at the time of writing. Keep reading for more news.
February 10, 2022
Today’s post is a conversation between Jamie Markham (JM) and Kristen Rosselli (KR), Chief Operating Officer at TROSA. We’ve been getting a lot of questions about how TROSA and other substance use disorder treatment programs are operating during the pandemic, so I thought I would go straight to the source to learn more. This post should not be viewed as an endorsement of TROSA in particular—it just happens to be one of the largest programs in the state, and the one about which I get the most inquiries. As always, my goal is to share up-to-date information so you can make informed decisions for the defendants, clients, and cases that come before you.
February 4, 2022
Emergency response officials and personnel at the state and local level deserve special recognition this week for their handling of the extremely dangerous fire at a fertilizer production facility in Winston-Salem. As the Winston-Salem Journal reports, a massive fire broke out at the Winston Weaver fertilizer plant on Monday night, prompting emergency responders to go door-to-door to warn residents within one mile of the site to evacuate their homes because of the possibility that roughly 600 tons of ammonium nitrate could explode and devastate the surrounding area. The threat of an explosion was diminishing at the time of writing. Keep reading for more news.
February 2, 2022
State law now requires every law enforcement agency to implement an “early warning system.” What is an early warning system? Do such systems work? And what can small agencies do to comply with the law? Read on to learn more.
January 31, 2022
Begin reading this post by standing up. Remain standing if you have worked in a position that has required you to interact directly and regularly with members of the public […]
January 28, 2022
Yesterday Justice Stephen Breyer announced that he will retire from the United States Supreme Court when the court takes its summer recess later this year, assuming that his successor has been confirmed by that time. As a profile from SCOTUSblog explains, Breyer was nominated to the Supreme Court by former President Bill Clinton in 1994 after serving for 14 years on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. President Joe Biden made a campaign pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court and said yesterday that he intends to follow through on that commitment by the end of February. Keep reading for more news.