The state legislature recently passed a law making patient brokering a felony. If you haven’t heard of patient brokering, well, you’re in the same boat I was in until recently. Read on to learn more.
News Roundup
Our hearts are with our clients and others who have been affected by Hurricane Helene. Expertise among faculty and staff of the School of Government may be valuable to local governments in the aftermath. That expertise list can be accessed here. Additionally, the School has an Emergency Management website available, which lists various state and federal resources for local governments impacted by Hurricane Helene. More on the Chief Justice’s Emergency Order can be found in this blog, posted earlier this week.
Keep reading for your weekly dose of criminal law news.
Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (Oct. 1, 2024)
This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on October 1, 2024. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present.
Navigating Autonomous Vehicle Technology and the Law
In 2017, the General Assembly ratified S.L. 2017-166 regulating “fully autonomous vehicles” on state roadways. Shea wrote about that legislation here, noting “[i]f you expect your car to begin driving you to work later this fall, however, you’ll be disappointed. In this instance, legislation has outpaced the technology it regulates.” Seven years later, what’s changed? Car companies are increasingly marketing and selling vehicles as autonomous, self-driving, or with self-driving features. Autopilot (Tesla), Super Cruise (GM), BlueCruise (Ford), and Drive Pilot (Mercedes) are just a few examples. Has the vehicle industry caught up? And what are the emerging issues now that some of these vehicles are on the road?
Violation of Conditions Before Release
I recently taught a session at the magistrates’ conference about arrestable conditions of pretrial release. The session sparked a lot of discussion about the law surrounding pretrial conditions for in-custody defendants. It is well understood that when a defendant violates pretrial release conditions after being released from custody, the law allows several mechanisms for enforcement, including revocation of pretrial release, arrest of the defendant, and the setting of new, potentially stricter conditions of pretrial release. What’s less clear is (1) whether or not conditions of release are enforceable if a defendant has not yet been released, and (2) if they are, what tools judicial officials have for enforcement. This post addresses these questions.
Emergencies in Western North Carolina, Including Chief Justice’s Emergency Order
There is no way to avoid hearing and seeing the devastating news about Western North Carolina. People have died; lost their loved ones; lost their homes; and have no power, water, cell phone or internet service. Towns are destroyed. Roads and bridges are gone. Although the news has focused on the larger western counties, cities … Read more
News Roundup
The State of Missouri put Marcellus Williams to death Tuesday, despite opposition from St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell and the victim’s family, the Associated Press reports. Williams was convicted of the murder of Lisha Gayle in 1998. Gayle was stabbed to death during a home burglary in which her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen. The case received international attention due to concerns that Williams may have been innocent. According to The Innocence Project, the case against Williams depended heavily on two witnesses with legal and financial motives rendering their testimony unreliable. Questions were also raised relating to the forensic evidence in the case. The murder weapon appeared to be improperly handled by a staff member from the prosecutor’s office and there was a lack of physical evidence linking Williams to the crime scene.
In 2017, former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens paused Williams’ execution and appointed a board to investigate further. However, current Governor Mike Parson disbanded the board before it issued a final report. Just last month, a new plea deal was accepted by a judge between the Prosecuting Attorney and Williams vacating the death sentence and imposing life without the possibility of parole. However, the State Attorney General, Andrew Bailey, intervened, objecting to the plea and sending the controversy to the State Supreme Court. The State Supreme Court set aside the deal and ordered an evidentiary hearing. Williams raised issues pertaining to bias in jury selection and mishandling of the evidence at the hearing but was ultimately unsuccessful. In declining to delay the execution, Governor Parson stressed that no jury nor court at the trial or appellate level had found merit in Williams’ claims to innocence. Though three Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court voted to halt the execution, the Court denied the emergency request.
Outside of Missouri, four other states scheduled executions within the span of a week, an uncommonly high number, as the number of executions per year is trending down nationwide.
Read on for more criminal law news.
Annual Report from the North Carolina Judicial College (2023-2024)
I am excited to share the latest annual report from the North Carolina Judicial College. Spoiler alert: In fiscal year 2023-2024, we offered more courses (51!) to more participants (more than 3,200!) than we have in my previous years as Judicial College Director. And our participants were pleased with the content, awarding our courses an … Read more
New Law on Juvenile Capacity to Proceed
The current law that governs a juvenile’s capacity to proceed in a delinquency matter matches part of the criminal law that governs a defendant’s capacity to proceed. The Juvenile Code expressly incorporates G.S. 15A‑1001, ‑1002, and ‑1003—the criminal provisions that establish a capacity standard and establish procedure to raise and determine capacity to proceed. G.S. 7B-2401. The criminal provisions that address safeguarding the defendant to return for trial should the defendant subsequently become capable of proceeding and return of the defendant for trial upon gaining capacity are notably absent from the Juvenile Code.
Beginning with offenses committed on January 1, 2025, the Juvenile Code will contain new laws, different from the criminal law, that establish a juvenile capacity standard, establish procedures to raise and determine capacity, and create new procedures for remediation of incapacity. This blog summarizes the new juvenile capacity standard and outlines the procedure to raise and determine capacity under the new law. More information on criminal procedure related to capacity to proceed can be found at https://benchbook.sog.unc.edu/criminal/capacity-proceed.
A Common Calendaring Concern: The Unilateral Reset
A question that arises with some frequency is whether the district attorney is free to unilaterally “reset” a matter in superior court by changing the trial date after a date has been set by the court.
At the outset, it’s important to distinguish between the scenario in which the State intentionally resets a case and that where a clerical error results in a case being unintentionally left off a trial calendar. Where the omission arises from an administrative error, the delay will likely be attributed to the State as part of any future speedy trial analysis, and it may be considered negligent, or at least “neglectful,” delay. See Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972); State v. Pippin, 72 N.C. App. 387, 395 (1985). But what about when the State intentionally resets a case after it has been scheduled for a particular trial date? In this scenario, the court has set a trial date, but when it comes time for the State to publish the trial calendar, the case is missing because the State intentionally omitted it or moved it to another setting.
Depending on where you practice, you may be thinking, “Of course the DA cannot unilaterally reset the case. The trial date was established by court order, and neither party is free to disregard a court order.” Alternatively, you may be thinking, “Doesn’t the DA have calendar control?” See G.S. 7A-61 (“the district attorney shall prepare the trial dockets”). See generally, Michael Crowell, Control of the Calendar in Criminal District Court, UNC Sch. of Gov’t (July 2010).