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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.

The AOC recently announced in a press release that Lydia Hoza has been appointed as the first chief public defender in Judicial District 27B, which includes Cleveland and Lincoln counties.  The establishment of the new office was part of the state budget passed late last year.  Hoza, who previously served as an assistant district attorney in Lincoln County, will be responsible for hiring thirteen attorneys and seven support staff who will work out of offices in both counties.

The shooting death of Andrew Walker by an off-duty Cumberland County Sheriff’s Deputy has drawn significant attention this week.  Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin told ABC 11 that in his opinion Cumberland deputy Jeffrey Hash should be charged with a crime for shooting Walker, who Hash said jumped on his truck and ripped off a windshield wiper which Walker then used to beat the windshield as Hash and his family were in the vehicle.  A judge recently authorized the release of body camera footage from officers who responded to the incident.  Keep reading for more news.

As blog readers know, the UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab has been developing a Measuring Justice Dashboard. Last year we released our Dashboard first metrics: Citation v. Arrest and Summons v. Warrant. We recently released a new Dashboard metric: Criminal Charging. In this post I’ll give some highlights of that tool. But in case you want to get right to it, you can access the Dashboard from the Lab’s web page (https://cjil.sog.unc.edu/); from the main page, click on “Measuring Justice.”

It is a new year, and there are new rules for determining the term of office for a district court judge appointed to fill a vacancy.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol where American citizens violently assaulted law enforcement officers and injured government property while storming the building in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election.  The NewsHour has been running a series of special reports about the attack this week which are available here.  The Greensboro News & Record reports that more than 725 people from across the country have been arrested for participating in the attack and has details about ongoing prosecutions of some North Carolinians.  Keep reading for more news.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Around this time last year, I blogged about the decades-long question surrounding assault in our state: when do multiple physical acts constitute one continuing assault offense and when do they constitute more than one assault offense?

At the time the blog was written, the Court of Appeals had analyzed this issue several times, but the question had never reached our state Supreme Court. The Court has since decided State v. Dew, ___ N.C. ___, 2021-NCSC-124 (Oct. 29, 2021), building on the Court of Appeals’ jurisprudence and offering clarification on the “distinct interruption” approach used in deciding these cases. This post reviews the Court’s decision in Dew and the implications it has on physical assault cases moving forward.

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on December 21, 2021. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.

This is the final post of the year. Thanks to all of our readers for engaging with the blog this year, we hope that everyone has a safe and happy holiday season.

WLOS reports that North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper Kevin E. Glenn was shot on Tuesday while deploying stop sticks in an effort to end a motor vehicle chase.  Fortunately, Glenn’s injuries, while serious, were not life threatening and he was released from the hospital yesterday.  A Facebook post from the Yancey County Sheriff’s Office says that the suspect, who was not named, shot at officers multiple times, causing them to return fire.  The suspect later was pronounced dead at Blue Ridge Regional Hospital.  Keep reading for more news.

In this earlier blog post, I provided a then-current overview of criminal law and related legislation enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly this legislative session. Since then, there have been a few more bills enacted that affect criminal law, criminal procedure, and motor vehicle law, as well as some amendments to previously enacted bills.