On Thursday, June 4, 2020, the North Carolina General Assembly passed S.B. 315, referred to as the State Farm Bill, which was subsequently signed into law by the Governor. The bill was pending all last session and stalled, allegedly over a dispute about how to treat smokable hemp. As I understand it, the bill originally intended to clarify that hemp in all forms (including smokable hemp) was legal (here is an earlier version of the bill taking that approach). After hearing objections from law enforcement and prosecutors (as detailed in the SBI memo on the subject), the proposed bill was changed to ban smokable hemp and regulate the rest of the hemp industry in a variety of ways. When the bill was last being discussed in the news, the dispute at the General Assembly had apparently narrowed to when the smokable hemp ban was to kick in. But, the bill never passed last session, and we were without a Farm Bill until this month. So, what big changes does the bill have in store for hemp in North Carolina?
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Case Summary – U.S. Supreme Court (June 15, 2020)
This post summarizes an opinion issued by the United States Supreme Court on June 15, 2020.
News Roundup
WRAL reports that in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, the police departments in Raleigh, Durham, and Fayetteville generally are adopting policies consistent with the “8 Can’t Wait” campaign which advocates for reduced use of force policing practices. Among the eight policy suggestions is a ban on chokeholds and strangleholds. Keep reading for more on this story and other news.
Felony Murder: Limits of Agency
Under the felony murder rule, a death that occurs as the proximate result of the commission or attempted commission of another qualifying crime (robbery, kidnapping, felony involving use of a deadly weapon, and others) constitutes first-degree murder, even in the absence of premeditation and deliberation. See G.S. 14-17(a). Shea Denning wrote a great summary of the basic law on felony murder here, and she tackled the confusing merger doctrine here.
But one topic we haven’t yet covered on this blog is the issue of agency. Under North Carolina’s felony murder law, a defendant can only be held responsible for a death that was caused by himself or an accomplice to the crime, not by an adversary such as a police officer who shoots back. Recently, I was confronted with a couple interesting questions about this rule.
First, why is that the rule, and does it have to be?
Second, how does it apply to situations such as when an innocent bystander is killed by a stray bullet that could have come from either an accomplice or an adversary?
Quick Reference Guide to Orders from the Chief Justice and the North Carolina Supreme Court Related to COVID-19
[This post originally appeared on the School of Government’s civil law blog.]
Since the start of the pandemic, the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and the North Carolina Supreme Court have issued a number of directives impacting the court system. Instead of doing a heavy substantive post today, I thought I would share a quick reference chart I’ve been using to keep track of these directives, their effect based on the most recent order issued, the dates of the order containing each directive, and their expiration date.
Case Summaries – N.C. Supreme Court (June 5, 2020)
This post summarizes opinions issued by the Supreme Court of North Carolina on June 5, 2020.
Detailed North Carolina Statewide & County-Level Criminal Charging Data
We previously reported on North Carolina state and county-level criminal charging data. In our earlier report (here) we provided data on charges, charged defendants and charged cases for felonies and misdemeanors, and broke misdemeanors down into non-traffic and traffic offenses. In this report, we present more detailed information about the nature of the felony and misdemeanor charges brought in North Carolina in 2019. For felony offenses, we provide data at the state and county level on, among other things, the number of non-violent and violent felony charges, and separate out drug charges. At the misdemeanor level, we parse the data into still more categories, including breakdowns for, among other things, DWI and related charges, non-DWI traffic charges, ordinance violations, and non-violent and violent misdemeanor charges. There is a lot to unpack in our new spreadsheet. In this report, we present some of the top line results. A spreadsheet with the data is available here.
News Roundup
The nation has been gripped by protests this week following the death of George Floyd while he was in police custody in Minneapolis. As the News Roundup noted last week, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd’s neck to the ground with his knee for nearly nine minutes while Floyd, who was handcuffed, pleaded that he could not breathe and bystanders repeatedly told Chauvin and other officers at the scene that Floyd appeared to be in great distress. A memorial service for Floyd, who had family in North Carolina and was born in Fayetteville, is scheduled to be held on Saturday in Raeford, where his sister lives. Keep reading for more on this story and other news.
Case Summaries – NC Court of Appeals (June 2, 2020)
This post summarizes opinions issued by the North Carolina Court of Appeals on June 2, 2020.
An Update on Prisons and Jails as the Courts Expand Operations
As the court system expands operations this week, people have questions about the current status of the correctional system. Today’s post covers some of the things we know.