Latest posts in category Uncategorized on North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

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.

A new report evaluates the impact of Mecklenburg County’s bail reforms. Cindy Redcross et al., MDRC Center for Criminal Justice Research, Evaluation of Pretrial Justice System Reforms That Use the Public Safety Assessment: Effects in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (2019) [hereinafter Evaluation]. The big take away? Mecklenburg released more defendants but did not see a significant increase in failures to appear (FTAs) or new criminal charges during the pretrial period. Id. at 2. Read on for details.

For many years, our colleague Jessie Smith prepared summaries of appellate cases and sent them out via the School of Government’s criminal law listserv. Because she is transitioning her work to focus on criminal justice policy, she will not be summarizing cases anymore, but several of us will collaboratively carry on the service. We will continue to send the summaries out using the listserv, and we are also going to post them here on the blog.  Summaries of North Carolina Court of Appeals opinions from June 18, 2019 are provided below.

Last month, the North Carolina Court of Appeals decided State v. Copley, __ N.C. App. __, 2019 WL 1996441 (May 7, 2019), in which a divided panel held that the trial court abused its discretion by overruling the defendant’s objections to the prosecutor’s remarks about race during closing argument. For that reason, the Court vacated the defendant’s first degree murder conviction. This post discusses the law governing when parties in a criminal trial may discuss issues of race, as well as emerging strategies for mitigating the effects of implicit racial bias on decision-makers.