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This post summarizes cases from the North Carolina Supreme Court from February 28, 2020.

As the Associated Press reports, movie producer Harvey Weinstein was convicted by a jury in New York this week of rape and sexual assault offenses against two women.  The verdicts, accompanied by several acquittals on other offenses including on the most serious charges Weinstein faced – two counts of predatory sexual assault, came after five days of deliberation by a jury that indicated at times through notes to the presiding judge that it may deadlock on some counts.  Weinstein was detained in custody following the verdict and is scheduled to be sentenced early next month, where he faces up to 25 years of imprisonment on the sexual assault offense and up to four years on the rape offense.  Other sexual assault charges are pending against Weinstein in California.  Allegations that Weinstein had engaged in a years-long pattern of sexual abuse in his position as a powerful Hollywood producer were widely seen as a touchstone moment in #MeToo movement when they became public in 2017.  Keep reading for more news.

This post summarizes cases from the U.S. Supreme Court from February 25, 2020.

I have been asked a few times lately which conditions of probation are “intermediate” conditions of probation. It turns out to be a little bit complicated.

I continue to receive questions about transferring from juvenile to criminal superior court cases involving allegations that 16-and 17-year-olds have engaged in certain criminal conduct. Recently I’ve been asked about the transfer process for offenses committed at ages 16 and 17 in cases that involve a series of charges that include Class A – G felonies, Class H and I felonies, and misdemeanors. Because the Juvenile Code prescribes differing procedures for transferring various classes of felonies and there is no transfer process for misdemeanor offenses, confusion is understandable. The key to understanding how to handle these cases is this: Once one felony is transferred, all other related charges, regardless of offense class, are automatically brought under the jurisdiction of the superior court. Why?

We previously produced information about the prevalence of secured bonds at the state and county level. In this report we update that work with 2019 data and look at changes in the imposition of financial and non-financial conditions in North Carolina. A few key takeaways from our research:

Criminal justice issues continued to capture the national news spotlight this week.  On Tuesday, President Donald Trump granted clemency to eleven people, including former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and former San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr.  On Thursday, amidst ongoing drama involving President Trump and the U.S. Department of Justice, Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison for convictions related to obstructing a congressional investigation.  Keep reading for more on these stories and other news.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays the School of Government from swift completion of their case summaries. This post summarizes opinions issued by the North Carolina Court of Appeals on February 18, 2020. Everyone stay safe during this wintry weather.

In State v. Rieger, ___ N.C. App. ___, 833 S.E.2d 699 (2019), the Court of Appeals held that court costs should be assessed only once for all related charges that are adjudicated together. I wrote about the case here. Today’s post looks at how the appellate courts have applied Rieger since it was decided last October.

A “peremptory strike” is a tool used by lawyers to exercise control over who is seated on a trial jury. When selecting a jury, attorneys may use peremptory strikes to remove a certain number of potential jurors for any reason at all, other than race and gender. Since lawyers typically do not have to explain the reasons behind their peremptory strikes, they “constitute a jury selection practice that permits those to discriminate who are of a mind to discriminate.” Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 96 (1986), quoting Avery v. Georgia, 345 U.S. 559, 562 (1953). In the 1986 case of Batson v. Kentucky, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed that peremptory strikes motivated by race violate the Equal Protection Clause; ever since then, challenges to racially motivated jury selection have been referred to as “Batson challenges.” Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). (For an excellent telling of James Batson’s story and the legacy of this decision, check out the More Perfect Podcast, Object Anyway.)