North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

On Wednesday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller spent seven hours testifying to the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.  Though his testimony was highly anticipated and widely covered by the media, Mueller largely reiterated the substance of the report he delivered earlier this year – saying that it was clear that Russia did interfere in the election but that there was not sufficient evidence that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired in that effort, and that his office did not reach a conclusion about whether President Trump obstructed justice during the investigation.  Keep reading for more news.

Have you ever been deeply enmeshed in a project, thought it was done, and when you returned with fresh eyes realized that you missed something important? That has happened for me when, for example, I painted the walls of my son’s bedroom only to walk in the next day with fresh eyes and realize that I should have painted the trim as well. And then it happened again as I was working on a chapter in the forthcoming Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act Implementation Guide and realized that there is an amendment contained in the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act (JJRA), that will take effect on December 1, 2019, that changes one piece of the recently released Juvenile Law Bulletin, Delinquency and DSS Custody without Abuse, Neglect, or Dependency: How Does that Work?. The change limits the court’s authority to order DSS custody as a component of a delinquency disposition, allowing this disposition only for juveniles under the age of 18. This limiting language creates a clear age boundary for an initial order of disposition to DSS custody in a delinquency case. However, questions remain regarding the capacity for a juvenile to remain in DSS custody pursuant to a delinquency dispositional order after turning 18.

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens died on Tuesday in Florida at the age of 99 after suffering a stroke.  As the Associated Press reports, Stevens served on the Court for nearly 35 years.  He was nominated to the bench by President Gerald Ford in 1975 and retired in 2010.  In 1976, Stevens joined the plurality opinion in Gregg v. Georgia, holding that Georgia’s death penalty scheme was not unconstitutional and ending the de facto national moratorium on the death penalty that followed Furman v. Georgia in 1972.  In 2002, Stevens wrote the majority opinion in Atkins v. Virginia, holding that it was unconstitutional to impose the death penalty on intellectually disabled offenders.  And in 2008, he wrote a concurring opinion in Baze v. Rees that indicated that he had arrived at the personal belief that the death penalty was unconstitutional in all cases.  Keep reading for more news.

The major national criminal law news of the week was the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein on federal sex-trafficking charges involving underage girls.  Epstein, who often is referred to as a billionaire financier though the extent and source of his wealth is largely shrouded in mystery, pleaded guilty in 2008 to prostitution charges in Florida state court as part of an unusually lenient plea agreement that allowed him to avoid serious federal sex crime charges and shielded any of his co-conspirators from prosecution.  That plea agreement was approved by current Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta, who was the United States Attorney in the Southern District of Florida at the time.  Over the years, Epstein has been connected to President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton.  Keep reading for more news.

About a year ago, Shea wrote about red flag laws, sometimes called gun violence restraining orders or extreme risk protection orders. More than a dozen states have such laws, and several bills are pending in the General Assembly that would enact a red flag law here. But are red flag laws constitutional?

Though Independence Day has passed, the celebration will continue for many through a weekend of travel and events with family and friends.  Through Friday evening, the NCDOT is suspending most major projects that require lane closure, and projects may be suspended on Sunday as well.  Law enforcement agencies across the state are putting extra emphasis on safe driving and boating this weekend, planning impaired driving checkpoints and extra patrols with Operation Firecracker.  If you shoot off any actual firecrackers, you might be violating state law and you shouldn’t compound the situation by doing it unsafely – be smart and consult the Consumer Products Safety Commission’s 2019 Fireworks Injuries poster.  Enjoy the holiday weekend and keep reading for more news.

As Chris Tyner explained here a few weeks ago, the School of Government will be continuing Professor Smith’s practice of summarizing recent North Carolina appellate cases on criminal law. The summaries will be posted here on the blog, and also sent out to the criminal law listserv. This post provides summaries of the North Carolina Court of Appeals opinions published on July 2, 2019.

Last month the News Roundup noted that a federal judge had vacated Charles Ray Finch’s 1976 state conviction for murder.  That ruling followed the Fourth Circuit’s decision earlier this year that Finch was entitled to a hearing on the merits of an untimely habeas petition because he met the actual innocence standard required to overcome his untimeliness.  The Wilson Times reports that this week the Wilson County District Attorney’s Office formally dismissed the murder charge against Finch and will not retry him.  The article says that Finch now will petition Governor Cooper for a pardon, which, if granted, would entitle him to compensation for the 40 years he spent in prison.  Keep reading for more news.

Late last week the United States Supreme Court decided Flowers v. Mississippi, 588 U.S. ___, ___ S. Ct. ___ (Jun. 21, 2019), holding in the context of a Batson challenge that the trial court committed clear error in concluding that the State’s peremptory strike of a black prospective juror was not motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent.  This post provides a summary of Flowers and also contains links to other School of Government resources discussing Batson.

As the News Roundup noted last week, bills in the General Assembly that would require Sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts are causing some controversy.  The News & Observer reports that the Sheriffs of Mecklenburg, Buncombe, and Wake counties attended a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting this week to express their opposition to House Bill 370, proposed legislation that essentially requires local law enforcement officials to cooperate with ICE and provides a mechanism to remove officials from office for failing or refusing to do so.  This piece from the Daily Advance says that some Sheriffs in other jurisdictions have no problems with the bill.  Keep reading for more news.