After the recent passage of HB 307, “Iryna’s Law,” questions are arising about whether executions will restart in North Carolina after a 19-year hiatus. Though the death penalty has been on the books during this period, legal challenges and practical issues have prevented the death penalty from being imposed.
The main change in the new law is that it allows for execution by electrocution and lethal gas. The law also directs officials to find a method other than lethal injection if lethal injection is declared unconstitutional by a state court or is otherwise unavailable. Some wonder whether North Carolina will join five other states in allowing execution by firing squad (the AP relates the history of this method here). Some experts are skeptical that these new provisions will result in the death penalty being imposed, however, given pending challenges under the Racial Justice Act as well as other appellate and post-conviction proceedings. Court orders entered at the superior court level in 2014 and 2019 have also suspended executions until litigation pertaining to the constitutionality of the method and the RJA is resolved.
Read on for more criminal law (and Halloween) news.
Town of Hillsborough cancels camera contract. Back in August, the Hillsborough, NC Board of Commissioners approved a contract with Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company that installs surveillance cameras along public roads to continuously capture the license plates of vehicles that pass. The company had begun installing cameras when the town reversed course, opting to cancel the contract. Town officials expressed concerns about a provision in the contract allowing Flock to share data with third parties where the company has a “good faith belief” that such sharing is necessary.
Flock Safety surveillance cameras have already proliferated throughout the state, with the company boasting of 400 customers, including university campuses and 100 law enforcement agencies, large and small. Proponents point to the usefulness of the technology in solving and deterring a variety of crimes and finding missing people. Others are concerned about the privacy implications (one juror during the endless Young Thug trial in Atlanta was surveilled for over a month by prosecutors to determine where he slept each night; the prosecutors were skeptical about his claim that he resided in Fulton County).
I previously noted the expansion of drone programs in police departments throughout the state (and Jeff has written several blogs on related legal issues). The comparative Fourth Amendment implications of the two approaches to putting “eyes in the sky” are interesting, with the drones generally being more targeted and responsive to a specific event or emergency, and the surveillance camera approach being a blanketed, widespread capture of the comings and goings of vehicles on public roads. Litigation over the constitutionality of Flock’s system of integrated cameras is ongoing. Flock, whose products have names such as “Condor,” “Falcon,” and “Raven” (Quoth the Raven: “Shots spotted”), notes the technology does not capture faces, nor does it monitor traffic safety violations.
Class certified in solitary confinement lawsuit. A group of teenagers held at the Cabarrus Regional Juvenile Detention Center filed suit last year in federal court in an attempt to stop the facility from placing youths in solitary confinement. The plaintiffs contend that youths are being held for 23 hours per day in small rooms in poor physical conditions. They further claim denial of access to education, mental health treatment, and recreational activities.
Last week, Chief District Court Judge Catherine C. Eagles granted class-action status to the plaintiffs, meaning that any relief granted will apply to current and future youth held at the facility (the judge denied the request to expand the scope of the class-action statewide).
To spook or not to spook? The most popular Halloween attraction in Philadelphia for many years running was the Eastern State Penitentiary, a real prison from the 19th century known for practices now widely considered beyond the pale. Charles Dickens visited the “Quaker experiment” in criminal justice and eloquently described what he observed.
In modern times, the penitentiary was converted into a tourist attraction, with actors “dressed as sadistic guards and disturbed prisoners, jump-scaring visitors from their prison cells.”
But those in charge are now having ethical reservations about incorporating real historical examples of inhumane correctional methods into their business of “dark tourism.” They are still jump-scaring the (un?)suspecting visitors, but the actors now portray “fictional phantoms like zombies and vampires.”
North Carolina professor of applied and professional ethics, Marius Pascale of Guilford College, whose “research centers around moral psychology and the ethics of fascination with morbidity and death,” weighed in on the ethical quandaries, raising questions about empathy, educational value, and the recency of the tragic occurrences.
Don’t click unless you want a fright. For a Virginia family terrorized by the sight of three figures in horrifying costumes ringing their doorbell late one October night, it turned out the call was coming from inside the… family. Authorities had been investigating the case of the clown-mask-clad callers as a potential burglary given that the suspects attempted to enter the house through the backyard. However, it was later determined that the purveyors of the terrifying prank were the residents’ cousins. No charges were sought.
Maybe don’t click on this one either. Though Snopes.com and the Pender County Sheriff have both verified the 911 call as real, questions abound regarding the circumstances behind a 2021 plea for help from a man hurtling down an Eastern North Carolina country road in his truck just before midnight. The driver claimed to see another man “streaked with blood” on the side of the road before a loud thump can be heard on the call. “That’s not human!” he screams to the dispatcher. “There’s something on the bed of my truck!”
Happy Halloween and be safe out there.