News Roundup
With Thanksgiving upon us, North Carolinians are preparing for a long holiday weekend and this will be the last post of the week for the blog. We hope our readers […]
The Legality of CBD: Caveat Emptor
Chances are you’ve heard of CBD products. Many cities around North Carolina have stores specializing in CBD products, and it’s widely available online and in ‘vape’ shops. It’s marketed for […]
Purple Paint and Trespass
I’ve been asked a few times about the meaning of purple bars painted on trees. At a recent class, someone showed me the relevant statute, which led me to learn […]
News Roundup
The first News Roundups published in each of the last two years have noted that increasing bipartisan support for federal criminal justice reform had caused many to believe that an […]
A Different Approach to “Collateral” Consequences of a Conviction
In recent years North Carolina has made several reforms in the field of collateral consequences, expanding opportunities for expunctions of convictions, authorizing courts to issue certificates of relief to limit […]
Prior Convictions for Possession of Drug Paraphernalia
A recent case from the court of appeals answers a question we’ve been wondering about for four years: How should a person’s prior conviction for possession of drug paraphernalia (PDP) […]
Not-Quite-Defective Indictments
Ordinarily, a pleading that fails to accurately allege every element of the offense is defective and is treated as a jurisdictional nullity. See, e.g., G.S. 15A-924(a)(5) (“as a prerequisite to […]
Veterans Day and Veterans on the Supreme Court
North Carolina’s courts are closed today for Veterans Day, so although UNC is open, we won’t run a substantive post. Instead, I wanted to take a moment to thank all […]
News Roundup
With the midterm elections and the resignation of the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, there was a lot of news this week. At the time of writing, however, those stories […]
Would Daniel M’Naughten Have Satisfied the M’Naughten Test for Insanity?
In February 1843, Daniel M’Naughten was tried in London for the murder of Edward Drummond, the private secretary to Prime Minister Robert Peel. M’Naughten was laboring under the delusion that […]