North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Just a week after the tragic school shooting in Charlotte at UNCC, a Colorado student was shot dead and eight others were injured in an attack at STEM School Highland Ranch, a high school near Denver.  Two STEM students, Alec McKinney and Devon Erickson, are accused of using handguns to attack their schoolmates in an English class on Tuesday afternoon.  An 18-year-old student, Kendrick Castillo, was killed when he tackled one of the shooters to protect his classmates.  Keep reading for more news.

Read post

In North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970), the United States Supreme Court concluded that it is constitutionally permissible for a defendant who does not admit guilt to enter a plea of guilty. Such a plea, now known as an Alford plea, is constitutional as long as the defendant “voluntarily, knowingly, and understandingly” enters the plea and there is a “strong factual basis” for the plea. The Court left to each state how to handle such pleas—whether to prohibit them, to allow each judge to decide whether to accept them, or to require their acceptance. Which category is North Carolina in?

Read post

Tragedy struck North Carolina this week when a 22-year-old man killed two UNC Charlotte students and injured four others in a campus shooting on the last day of classes.  The Charlotte Observer reports that on Tuesday evening a former UNCC student, Trystan Andrew Terrell, used a handgun to attack students in a science and technology course that he had attended at one time.  Riley Howell of Waynesville and Ellis Parlier of Midland lost their lives in the attack; our thoughts are with their families and friends, along with everyone else affected by the shooting.  Keep reading for more news.

Read post

Late last week U.S. Attorney General William Barr publicly released a redacted copy of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.  The full report is more than 400 pages long and is divided into two volumes.  Keep reading for further discussion of the report and for more news.

Read post

I have had the pleasure of working here at the School of Government for eight months now. In that time I have gotten some interesting questions about North Carolina’s delinquency laws. Most often, those questions relate to the confidentiality of juvenile court records. When I first read the statute – G.S. 7B-3000 – I thought it was an open and shut case. Unless you are on the list of people allowed access without a court order, access can only be allowed pursuant to a court order. But then the questions started to come in. Who exactly is the juvenile’s attorney under this statute? Can any prosecutor access juvenile records any time? Can a federal court order disclosure of a North Carolina juvenile record? On what basis can courts order release of juvenile records? It turns out that it’s not open and shut at all. Here is what I have learned so far.

Read post

The debate about the criminal justice system increasingly is driven by empirical studies. Phil Dixon wrote thoughtfully last week about a new analysis of 700,000 drug arrests conducted by UNC faculty members outside the School of Government. This article by a Georgia law professor is also attracting attention – it claims to be “the most substantial empirical analysis of misdemeanor case processing to date,” based on “multiple court-record datasets, covering several million cases across eight diverse jurisdictions.” Similarly, in the popular media, this Washington Post article analyzes a huge trove of data to determine the percentage of arrests in each county across the nation that are based on marijuana possession. I could list many more examples, but the general point is one with which I suspect most readers will agree: that big data is revolutionizing the discussion of criminal justice. This transformation has been unfolding for decades. Drivers include the growth of law and economics and other law and social science approaches, which has fertilized the legal field with social science techniques, and the increasing availability of large datasets, which has made statistical analysis easier. This post offers a few thoughts about the costs and benefits of this new data-focused world.

Read post

This week federal prosecutors announced that they have charged 60 people, including 31 doctors, pharmacists, and medical professionals, with various offenses arising from an investigation into illegal opioid distribution and health care fraud.  Last year the Justice Department formed the Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid Strike Force and dispatched experienced health care fraud attorneys to several federal districts across the country to build cases against “medical professionals [who] behave like drug dealers.”  The charges were brought in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and West Virginia.  Additional arrests are expected to arise from the investigation. The News Roundup comes a day early this week as the School is closed tomorrow for a holiday, we’ll be back to blogging on Monday.  Keep reading for more news.

Read post

On Wednesday, a ruptured gas line in Durham caused a massive explosion that killed one person and injured 25 others while also completely destroying a building and damaging property nearby.  The Durham Herald Sun reports that nine firefighters were among those injured in the blast as the department was in the process of evacuating people from the area surrounding the ruptured line.  At the time of writing, the precise cause of the rupture and explosion was still being investigated.  Keep reading for more news.

Read post

Today is the day! Whether you are a long-time donor or have never given before, we hope you’ll consider supporting the School of Government today for GiveUNC.

Read post

This week federal prosecutors announced that they have charged the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, Robin Hayes, and a political donor who owns an insurance company, Greg Lindberg, with attempting to bribe State Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey.  Reports say that Lindberg, along with two associates who also have been charged, met with Causey repeatedly to discuss exchanging campaign donations for favorable treatment with respect to a financial examination that was being conducted on one of Lindberg’s businesses.  Hayes allegedly also attempted to persuade Causey on behalf of Lindberg.  Causey reported the scheme and worked with federal authorities during the investigation; he said this week that the case was complex and that more indictments could be forthcoming.  Keep reading for more news.

Read post