On Tuesday, an officer-involved shooting in Raleigh set off protests in the city that were fueled in part by social media postings in the immediate hours after the event. A Raleigh police officer shot Javier Torres after responding to a 911 call reporting that a man was displaying a gun at a local strip mall. Soon after the shooting, rumors posted on Facebook motivated protests in downtown Raleigh, at the police chief’s home, and at the governor’s mansion. Keep reading for more on this story and other news.
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New Video Tech, Same Old Rules
My colleagues and predecessors here at the School of Government have written about video evidence many times over the years, summarizing the basic rules and significant cases in posts available here, here, here, here, and here.
Recently, though, I’ve been getting questions about a relatively new but increasingly common type of video evidence: high-tech, app-controlled, and remotely stored videos taken by automated devices ranging from doorbell cameras to wifi-enabled, cloud-connected, teddy bear spy cams. Do the old rules still work the same way for these new video tools? Is it substantive or illustrative evidence? If it’s substantive, how is it authenticated? Is a lay witness qualified to testify about how these cameras work? Does the proponent need the original video? Come to think of it, what is the “original” of a video that exists only as bits of data floating somewhere in the cloud…?
Case Summary – U.S. Supreme Court (Mar. 3, 2020)
This post summarizes a criminal case from the United States Supreme Court from March 3, 2020.
News Roundup
The News & Observer reports that this week a federal jury in Charlotte convicted Greg Lindberg of attempting to bribe State Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey to give favorable treatment to Lindberg’s insurance business. As the News Roundup previously has noted, Lindberg was accused of working with Robin Hayes, the former chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, to bribe Causey. Lindberg has been one of the largest political donors in North Carolina in recent years. Causey, who reported the attempted bribe to federal investigators, said in a statement following the conviction that it “show[ed[ that the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance is not for sale.” Keep reading for more news.
Does a “Prayer for Judgment Continued” Differ Very Much from a “Prayer for Judgment Granted”?
Once upon a time in the North Carolina courts, a prayer for judgment continued (PJC) could have a positive impact on a person’s future. Essentially, the prosecution would pray—that is, move—for entry of judgment, and the judge would continue the prayer and withhold judgment rather than granting the prayer and entering judgment. See State v. Griffin, 246 N.C. 680 (1957) (discussing procedure). Older cases recognized that a judge’s exercise of his or her authority to defer judgment in the interest of justice did not constitute a conviction. A PJC was thus treated like a prosecutor’s exercise of discretion in deferring prosecution. The deferral not only avoided imposition of sentence in the criminal case; it also meant that the matter did not count as a conviction in later, collateral proceedings. See Barbour v. Scheidt, 246 N.C. 169 (1957) (discussing treatment of PJCs). The Court of Appeals’ February 18, 2020 decision in Mace v. North Carolina Dept. of Insurance provides a reminder that times have changed and a PJC usually provides no protection from the collateral consequences of a conviction.
News Roundup
As the Associated Press reports, movie producer Harvey Weinstein was convicted by a jury in New York this week of rape and sexual assault offenses against two women. The verdicts, accompanied by several acquittals on other offenses including on the most serious charges Weinstein faced – two counts of predatory sexual assault, came after five days of deliberation by a jury that indicated at times through notes to the presiding judge that it may deadlock on some counts. Weinstein was detained in custody following the verdict and is scheduled to be sentenced early next month, where he faces up to 25 years of imprisonment on the sexual assault offense and up to four years on the rape offense. Other sexual assault charges are pending against Weinstein in California. Allegations that Weinstein had engaged in a years-long pattern of sexual abuse in his position as a powerful Hollywood producer were widely seen as a touchstone moment in #MeToo movement when they became public in 2017. Keep reading for more news.