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Each year the School of Government summarizes legislation enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly affecting criminal law and procedure and motor vehicle laws. We also explore selected legislation in more depth on this blog. Most criminal law legislation has an effective date of December 1 to allow the courts to prepare for the changes. What follows is a brief summary of the criminal law and related legislation with earlier effective dates enacted thus far during the 2021 legislative session. It isn’t everything the legislature has done, and by no means is it everything you need to know.

Tragedy struck at Mount Tabor High School this week where a student, William Chavis Raynard Miller, Jr., was shot and killed, apparently by another student.  As the Winston-Salem Journal reports, hundreds of people attended a vigil for Miller yesterday at Mount Tabor United Methodist Church.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news.

As the North State Journal reports, the General Assembly recently passed a bill that repeals North Carolina’s pistol purchase permit law.  Opinions on the bill are divided and it remains to be seen whether Governor Cooper will sign it into law.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news.

As students across North Carolina head back to school, it is a good time to review the law that governs notifying schools about juvenile delinquency cases. Prior to raise the age, notification of charges for high school students required an understanding of the requirements under both the Juvenile Code for delinquency cases and the Criminal Code for cases in which students were accused of crimes committed at ages 16 and 17. Now,  under the post-raise the age statutory structure of juvenile jurisdiction, the Juvenile Code requirements will govern nearly all school notifications.

Here are the headlines:

• school notification can only be made by a juvenile court counselor to the school principal and under the specific circumstances outlined in the Juvenile Code, and
• the information disclosed must remain confidential and may only be used by the school in the limited way allowed for by the law.

A new book by Brandon Garrett is a deep dive into the misuse of forensic evidence in criminal courtrooms. To borrow from its description, Autopsy of a Crime Lab: Exposing the Flaws of Forensics “is the first book to catalog the sources of error and the faulty science behind a range of well-known forensic evidence, from fingerprints and firearms to forensic algorithms.” Professor Garrett has also recorded video lectures to accompany the information in the book. Together with Indigent Defense Services and the SOG, we are pleased to announce a new online CLE course based on the book and video series. Read on for more details.

The School of Government and the North Carolina Judicial College are excited to announce the addition of Emily Turner to the faculty. Emily joined the School in July 2021 and will be the lead faculty member working with district court judges, superior court judges, clerks of court, and magistrates on legal and practical aspects of conducting civil trials and contested hearings with a particular focus on the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure.

A North Carolina man, Floyd Ray Roseberry, caused the evacuation of buildings near the United States Capitol yesterday after parking his truck on the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress and claiming that it was rigged with explosives capable of destroying two city blocks.  While livestreaming to Facebook, Roseberry reportedly said that he would surrender peacefully if President Joe Biden stepped down from office.  The incident prompted a massive law enforcement and emergency personnel response, and Roseberry eventually surrendered without incident.  The story was developing at the time of writing.  Keep reading for more news. 

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on August 17, 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.

WCNC reports that the Mecklenburg County Courthouse was closed all of this week because of a covid outbreak among employees.  All sessions of district and superior court were rescheduled.  The WCNC story says that at least 29 employees were in quarantine because of potential exposure to the virus.  Keep reading for more news.

As the New York Times reports, prosecutors have opened investigations of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo after the state attorney general released a report this week concluding that Cuomo had sexually harassed eleven women.  Keep reading for more news.