Recent blog posts

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 have a relaxing time with friends and family.  Of course, a prerequisite to relaxation is safe travel during this historically busy time on the state’s highways.  WLOS reports that beginning on Wednesday the State Highway Patrol will station troopers every 20 miles on I-40 to ensure that everyone is following the rules of the road.  The NC DOT says that law enforcement officers across the state are conducting a Thanksgiving “Click it or Ticket” campaign – last year’s effort involved 428 checkpoints and the discovery of more than 40,000 traffic and criminal violations (#pulledover).  Enjoy the holiday and keep reading for more news.

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 its health benefits and is touted as a safe and legal (if largely unregulated) treatment for a variety of conditions, from depression to inflammation to cancer and acne. I was recently asked to look at the law surrounding CBD products, and this post summarizes what I found.

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 a little more about it. This post lays out what I know.

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 overhaul of the system was imminent.  On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced his support for a legislative package known as the First Step Act that would bring significant changes to the federal system.  News reports say that, among other things, the legislation would reduce the severity of the federal “three strikes” penalty, make the reduced sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine retroactive, and allow judges greater discretion to avoid imposing mandatory minimum sentences in some cases.  The bill also would create programs to improve prison conditions, including prohibiting the shackling of pregnant inmates.  Keep reading for more news.

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 collateral consequences, and requiring that licensing agencies consider whether a nexus exists between applicants’ criminal conduct and their prospective duties, among other factors. See G.S. 93B-8.1. The changes are helpful but incremental. Our most recent criminal justice class challenged the extensive reliance on collateral consequences in the U.S., the effectiveness of current remedies, and ultimately barriers to reintegration into society of people who have previously been convicted of a crime.

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) […]

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 its validity, an indictment must allege every essential element of the criminal offense it purports to charge”); State v. Harris, 219 N.C. App. 590 (2012) (indictment is invalid and confers no jurisdiction on the trial court if it “fails to state some essential and necessary element of the offense”).

The limited exception to this rule is the somewhat relaxed pleading standard for a citation, which may still be sufficient even if it fails to state every element, as long as it reasonably identifies the crime charged. Shea Denning and Jeff Welty covered that issue in a series of posts available here, here, and here.

Several recent cases from the Court of Appeals have offered a good reminder about another important corollary to the general rule for pleadings:  although an indictment must “allege every element” in order to be valid, the state has quite a bit of flexibility in how that standard can be met.

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 veterans, including those who work in and with the court system. Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended WWI, making it an appropriate time to reflect on the sacrifices veterans have made throughout the nation’s history.

While reading about Veterans Day, I happened on this article, which addresses the role of veterans on the Supreme Court of the United States. The whole piece is worth reading, but for those interested in an executive summary, it makes two major points.

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 were being reported below the fold as the nation grappled again with the uniquely American recurring tragedy of a mass shooting.  As the L.A. Times reports, Ian David Long killed 12 people and injured 18 others at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, on Wednesday night before killing himself.  Many of the victims were college students at the bar for line-dancing lessons and birthday celebrations.  Keep reading for more news.

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 Prime Minister Peel was part of a system that was persecuting him. Only by shooting Peel could he end the torment. Drummond became the victim of these delusions when M’Naughten mistook him for Peel. The trial of M’Naughten, the verdict of insanity, and the aftermath made legal history.