Latest posts in category Uncategorized on North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

I sometimes get this question from judges, lawyers, and individuals seeking relief. The answer is: As many as the law allows. North Carolina’s statutes establish precise requirements for obtaining an expunction, including conditions barring relief. Many of the statutes specify that a prior expunction of an adult criminal proceeding bars a later expunction (more on juvenile proceedings below). Some statutes contain no such language, however. Under the terms of those statutes, a person with a prior expunction can obtain a later expunction if he or she meets the other requirements for relief. There is not a general prohibition on a subsequent expunction. Here are the principal statutes providing for this result.

The Washington Post reports that voters in Nebraska, California, and Oklahoma showed their support for the death penalty by “rejecting measures that would abolish it and, in one case, giving lawmakers more room to find new execution methods.” In Oklahoma, voters approved a proposal to add language to the state constitution explicitly stating that the death penalty is not cruel and unusual punishment, and gave state lawmakers the ability to adopt “any method of execution not prohibited by the United States Constitution.” As the News Roundup previously has noted, obtaining the drugs typically used for lethal injection is becoming increasingly difficult. Keep reading for more news.

Wow. That was a surprise. Donald Trump has been elected to serve as the nation’s 45^th president, defying the outcome nearly all the experts predicted, in what The Washington Post called a “shocking ending” to a “traumatic campaign.”

President-elect Trump carried North Carolina by 3.8 percentage points over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. That’s an impressive margin for a state that Republican nominee Mitt Romney carried by 2.2 percent over President Obama in 2012, and which Obama won by less than a percentage point in 2008.

What impact will a Trump presidency have on the legal issues discussed in this blog? 

Beyond the Bench, the podcast of the Judicial College here at the School of Government, is back with a new season. Professor Sara DePasquale takes the reins as the host […]

Two Iowa police officers were shot and killed early Wednesday morning in ambush attacks that made national news.  As the Des Moines Register reports, Urbandale Police Officer Justin Martin and Des Moines Police Sgt. Anthony Beminio each were shot while in their vehicles. The lone suspect, Scott Michael Greene, was apprehended a few hours after the shootings.  Early reports indicate that Greene had a run-in with Urbandale officers in the middle of last month after an incident at a high school football game where he waved a Confederate flag in front of a group of African-Americans and was ejected from the stadium.  The stadium is located at a traffic intersection where one of the officers was shot.  Keep reading for more news.

I’m a big baseball fan. (A Pittsburgh Pirates fan, if you’re wondering.) And so of course I stayed up late last night to watch what turned out to be a thrilling end to an historic World Series. I hate to spoil things for those of you who get all your news—legal and otherwise—from this blog, but the Cubs won.

In criminal proceedings, court orders can affect other agencies. When the court imposes a sentence of imprisonment, the Division of Adult Correction has the responsibility of carrying it out. If the court issues a limited driving privilege in a traffic case, a person can drive even though the Division of Motor Vehicles has revoked the person’s license. A court may grant an expunction petition, requiring law enforcement agencies to destroy records of the criminal case. What happens if the affected agency believes that the order is unlawful? A recent decision, In re Timberlake (Oct. 18, 2016), provides some clarity about the procedures to follow, at least in the context of that case.

The NC Department of Public Safety says that a portion of Neuse Correctional Institution was evacuated on Monday morning following a disturbance that started late Sunday afternoon. According to a press release, a small group of inmates “set two separate fires, one inside the prison’s diagnostic building and one that destroyed a storage shed.” The inmates also broke windows and damaged four dorms. Approximately 500 inmates were transferred to other prisons because of the damage. Keep reading for more news.

As the News & Observer reports, the Orange County Republican Party headquarters in Hillsborough was firebombed and vandalized over the weekend. According to the report, “[a] flaming bottle was thrown through a window of the office” and an adjacent building was vandalized with paintings of a swastika and the phrase “Nazi Republicans leave town or else.” The incident drew the attention of both presidential candidates, and vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence and Governor McCrory each visited the headquarters. McCrory has offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case. Keep reading for more news.

Today’s post discusses two recent federal cases involving the use of Tasers in North Carolina jails. (The post draws from an article I originally prepared for the North Carolina Jail Administrators’ Association newsletter.)