This post summarizes opinions issued by the North Carolina Court of Appeals on December 17, 2019.
These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free, searchable database of case annotations from 2008 to today.
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New Paper on the 48-Hour Rule
One of the projects that I wanted to finish before I go was updating my old paper on the 48-hour rule of G.S. 15A-534.1. I just completed the update. The new paper is available here. It is more comprehensive than before, but in a different format that is a little longer and less handy. It … Read more
News Roundup
As the New York Times reports, a prolonged shootout at a Kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey, on Tuesday terrified the city and left six people dead, including a police officer. Now being investigated as an anti-Semitic hate crime, it appears that the supermarket was purposefully chosen as a target. Suspects David N. Anderson and Francine Graham, who both died during the attack, are thought to have shot Detective Joe Seals, a 15-year law enforcement veteran, in an encounter at a cemetery and then to have driven to the market where they began shooting at people with rifles. When police arrived at the scene, they were immediately fired upon and a lengthy gun battle ensued, eventually concluding when an armored vehicle was used to ram through the front of the market. Keep reading for more news.
Case Summaries: Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals – November, 2019
This post summarizes published decisions from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that may be of interest to state criminal practitioners from November, 2019.
Case Summaries – North Carolina Supreme Court (12/6/2019)
This post summarizes opinions issued by the North Carolina Supreme Court on December 6, 2019.
Does Miranda Apply When Defendant’s Lawyer is Present?
If you type “miranda” into the search box on this blog, it will return more than 50 posts covering a wide range of related topics: the meaning of custody, deficient warnings, knowing and voluntary waivers, ambiguous assertion of rights, special rules for juveniles, readvising and reinterviewing, public safety exceptions, and many, many others.
But I was stumped recently by a deceptively simple question that I had not heard before, and did not come up in those results: what if the defendant’s lawyer is present? Does an in-custody defendant still have to be advised of his Miranda rights before he can be questioned by police?
I did some digging, and the case law on this issue genuinely surprised me.
Off to NCDOJ
After 12 years at the School of Government, I have accepted a position at the North Carolina Department of Justice. I’ll be leading the Special Prosecutions and Law Enforcement Section within the Criminal Division. I am looking forward to a new challenge and to the opportunity to work with wonderful new colleagues. At the same time, I am profoundly grateful for my time at the School of Government. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some parts of my work here that I have especially cherished.
News Roundup
As the News Roundup previously has noted, Charles Ray Finch was released from North Carolina prison earlier this year after serving more than 40 years for a murder that he did not commit. This week the News & Observer reported that Finch has filed a federal lawsuit against Wilson County, Sheriff Calvin Woodard Jr., two former Wilson County deputies, and two staffers with the SBI. According to the N&O, the suit alleges that deputies with the Wilson County Sheriff’s Office, then led by W. Robin Pridgen, organized the 1976 robbery that resulted in store owner Richard Holloman’s murder and then framed Finch for the crime. Keep reading for more news.
Case Summaries—Court of Appeals (12/3/2019)
This post summarizes opinions issued by the North Carolina Court of Appeals on December 3, 2019. Appeal of district court’s denial of defendant’s motion to enter judgment on PJC was not properly before Court of Appeals State v. Doss, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (Dec. 3, 2019) In 1999, the defendant was found … Read more
No Appeal of Revocation of Deferred Prosecution Probation
The Court of Appeals recently held in State v. Summers that a defendant has no right to appeal when deferred prosecution probation is revoked.