North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

As the Asheville Citizen-Times reports, earlier this month the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians was the victim of a damaging cyberattack that caused widespread damage to tribal networks and affected critical systems including 911 dispatch.  Almost two weeks out from the December 7 attack, the tribe still is working to repair their network and bring systems back online.  A former IT employee who was suspended two days before the attack, Benjamin Cody Long, has been arrested in connection with the incident.  A report from the Cherokee One Feather covering Long’s detention hearing in Cherokee Tribal Court has detailed information about the attack and includes a quote from the judge describing the damage as “immense and unprecedented.”

This is the last blog 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.  Keep reading for more news.

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.

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.

This post summarizes published decisions from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that may be of interest to state criminal practitioners from November, 2019.

This post summarizes opinions issued by the North Carolina Supreme Court on December 6, 2019.

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.

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.

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 […]

Now that the North Carolina General Assembly has adjourned for the remainder of the year and most criminal law legislation has taken effect (which is often December 1 each year), it’s time to take stock of what passed this session. You can read summaries of all of the criminal law and related legislation here. Each summary provides a brief description of the act in question along with a link to the text of the act and, where available, links to blogs my colleagues and I wrote. As usual, the legislation spans a range of topics.

With the short holiday week, the News Roundup comes a few days early.  We hope our readers have a safe and happy holiday.  We’ll be back to blogging on Monday.  Keep reading for the latest in criminal law and Thanksgiving news.