Latest posts in category Uncategorized on North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

This week the Justice Department sued California Governor Jerry Brown and the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, alleging that certain recently enacted California immigration laws are unconstitutional. The New York Times says that the laws “restrict when and how local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officers.” The Justice Department’s position is that the laws “reflect a deliberate effort by California to obstruct the United States’ enforcement of federal immigration law.” Keep reading for more news.

Last month, Jeff blogged about the backlog of rape kits in North Carolina and other jurisdictions across the country.  At the time of his post, there wasn’t a great deal of information available about the magnitude of the backlog in North Carolina, but Jeff noted that a 2017 law required law enforcement agencies to inventory their kits and report their findings to the State Crime Laboratory.  The Associated Press reported this week that the results of that process show that North Carolina has more than 15,000 untested kits.  At a press conference, Attorney General Josh Stein made proposals for testing the kits and tracking the status of kits collected in the future.  Keep reading for more news.

I doubt it is much of an exaggeration to say that in every workplace in North Carolina this time of year, there is talk of basketball. College basketball, of course, and, more specifically, ACC basketball. The conversation in late February usually is about the second UNC/Duke game, first-place finishers in the conference, brackets, and which teams are on the bubble. But this week, the conversation wasn’t usual. Instead it was about which school’s current and former players got what benefits from whom and who knew about it. That conversation was spurred by last Friday’s Yahoo Sports report listing dozens of players from dozens of schools who may have received payments in violation of the NCAA’s amateurism rules. The report was based on reporters’ review of documents obtained by the FBI in connection with its “investigation into the underbelly of college basketball.” All of this caused me to wonder, aside from potential NCAA rules violations, what crimes are associated with the alleged payments to coaches, players, and player’s family members.

The Durham Herald Sun reports that after District Court Judge Fred Battaglia acquitted one defendant and dismissed charges against two others allegedly involved in destroying a Confederate monument in Durham last year, Durham District Attorney Roger Echols announced that his office was dropping all remaining charges arising from the incident.  Echols said that because the evidence against the remaining defendants was the same as that introduced in the trials this week, it would be a misuse of state resources to continue to pursue the prosecutions.  Keep reading for more news.

Yet again this week, our nation confronts the tragedy of a mass shooting.  Nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz has been charged with 17 counts of murder following an attack on Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.  Cruz was a student at the school but had been expelled.  For perspective on where this incident falls among the more than 40 active shooter episodes at schools in the United States since 2000, 12 people were killed at Columbine and 26 were killed at Sandy Hook; two were killed last month in Kentucky.  Three of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern United States history have occurred in the last five months.  Keep reading for more news.

As the Associated press reports, last week United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced a new policy regarding immigration arrests at courthouses.  The policy appears to suggest that ICE primarily will enter courthouses to arrest specific “targeted aliens” who have criminal convictions, are gang members, pose a threat to public safety, have been ordered removed from the United States, or have illegally re-entered the country after being removed.  The policy says that aliens encountered in the process of making an arrest of a targeted person, such as the target’s family members or friends, will not be arrested “absent special circumstances.”  Keep reading for more news.

In 1985, Anthony Wyrick sexually assaulted two teenage girls in Charlotte. The police collected semen and other biological evidence but DNA testing was not available at that time and the crime went unsolved. Almost 30 years later, the case came to the attention of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s sexual assault cold case unit. Officers submitted the biological evidence for DNA testing. The results pointed to Wyrick, who lived near the scene of the crime in 1985 and who had since been convicted of an unrelated second-degree rape. Wyrick was eventually arrested, charged, and convicted. His conviction was affirmed last month in State v. Wyrick, which I how I learned of the case. Reading it got me wondering about the status of what is popularly known as the rape kit backlog.

Larry Nassar was back in Michigan court this week for another sentencing hearing arising from a November guilty plea to three counts of criminal sexual conduct.  The New York Times says that 65 women are scheduled to speak at this hearing.  USA Today reports that the Nassar case has caused Texas Governor Greg Abbott to direct the Texas Rangers to investigate the Karolyi Ranch, a former National Training Center for USA Gymnastics run by Bela and Marta Karolyi.  Several victims have alleged that Nassar abused them at the ranch.  Keep reading for more news.

On Tuesday, a 15-year-old high schooler with a handgun killed two fellow students and wounded sixteen others in Kentucky.  According to NBC News, the shooter opened fire in a common area of Marshall County High School just before 8:00 a.m., sending the school into chaos as students desperately fled the attack.  Police officers arrived at the school minutes later, quickly disarming the shooter and taking him into custody.  Bailey Nicole Holt died at the scene and Preston Ryan Cope died later at a hospital.  Keep reading for more news.

A disturbing case of child abuse has received widespread national news coverage this week.  As the L.A. Times reports, David and Louise Turpin of Perris, California, were charged with multiple felony counts of torture and child abuse after it was discovered that the couple had held their thirteen children captive for years and subjected them to unimaginable mistreatment.  On Sunday, one of the children escaped the family home through a window and called 911, alerting authorities that she and her siblings had been beaten, starved, shackled, and forced to live in unsanitary conditions.  Bail has been set at $12 million for each defendant.  Keep reading for more news.