North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

As the Asheville Citizen-Times reports, Wanda Greene pleaded guilty this week to several federal criminal offenses arising from her corrupt activity while serving as Buncombe County Manager.  With the plea, Greene joins her conspirators and former assistant county managers Jon Creighton and Mandy Stone, as well as her son Michael Greene, in awaiting sentencing for their crimes.  As the News Roundup has noted previously, Creighton, Stone, and the Greene’s participated to varying degrees in a range of corrupt schemes including accepting bribes in exchange for awarding county contracts and misusing county funds for their personal benefit.  Keep reading for more news.

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting around 40 attorneys for the second part of a new course, Higher Level Felony Defense. The first part, held in early 2018, focused primarily on preparing a case for trial. We also included a deep dive into jury selection. This second part focused on common issues in serious felony cases as well on sentencing advocacy. As a new program, I’m sure it will evolve, but I thought the first iteration was promising and wanted to talk briefly about the program and our goals.

On Monday, North Carolina leaders attended a ceremonial session of the North Carolina Supreme Court convened to honor the court’s 200th anniversary. The celebratory session featured a documentary video and remarks by current and former justices of the Court. WRAL has a story about the event here and the AOC has a post about it here. Keep reading for more news.

In December, the School of Government held the first week of orientation for new district court judges. The class included thirty-one new judges. Most of the judges took the bench […]

Yesterday afternoon, the House passed the bipartisan federal criminal justice reform bill known as the “First Step Act,” sending the bill to President Donald Trump who has said that he will sign it into law.  The News Roundup previously discussed some of the provisions of the bill in this post.  Among other things, the bill gives judges increased discretion in sentencing certain offenses and aims to place prisoners in facilities closer to their homes so that families can visit more often.  This is the final blog post of the year, we’ll resume posting on Monday, January 7.  Enjoy the holidays and keep reading for more news.

As part of this semester’s study abroad program, I asked the 25 Carolina students to identify and write up a memorable London experience. Having given them the nearly impossible task of picking just one experience to memorialize, it’s only fair that I do the same in my last blog post from London.

Several federal circuit courts have decided Second Amendment cases over the past few months. This post summarizes them. The cases and the reasoning behind them are not all completely consistent, but collectively, the courts continue to interpret the Second Amendment as permitting substantial levels of gun control.

As Charlottesville newspaper The Daily Progress reports, late last week a Virginia jury convicted James Alex Fields Jr. of first-degree murder and several other charges arising from his attack on people gathered to protest a white supremacist rally in August of last year.  On Tuesday, the jury recommended that Fields be sentenced to life in prison for the offenses.  In a violent bookend to an already disturbing series of events in Charlottesville, Fields drove a car into a crowd of protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others.  Fields also faces federal hate crime charges, though a trial date for those charges has not yet been set.  Keep reading for more news.

Allegations of ballot fraud in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District are major national news this week.  As the Associated Press reports, the state elections board has refused to certify the results of the race between Mark Harris and Dan McCready because of “claims of numerous irregularities and concerted fraudulent activities” involving a woman who allegedly went to people’s homes to collect their absentee ballots, some of which were not signed or sealed.  The AP story says that Wake County DA Lorrin Freeman has been investigating voting irregularities in Bladen County, a portion of which is in the 9th District, since last January.  Keep reading for more news.

Bob Farb’s Arrest, Search, and Investigation in North Carolina for years has been an indispensable resource for people who work in the North Carolina criminal justice system. The book is a comprehensive treatment of the law governing the investigation of criminal offenses in our state and is widely relied upon by law enforcement officers, district attorneys, criminal defense attorneys, and judges.