Maybe so, if two decisions from earlier this month are any indication. They are: State v. Bishop, ___ N.C. App. ___ (Oct. 3, 2017), where the court refused to consider arguments about the reasonableness of satellite-based monitoring (“SBM”) when the issue was not preserved or properly appealed, and State v. Greene, ___N.C. App. ___ (Oct. 3, 2017), where the court refused to remand a SBM hearing when the State failed to present sufficient evidence of the reasonableness of SBM. Before I discuss those cases, some background first.
Probation Officers’ Use of Naloxone and the Good Samaritan Law
Like many government agencies, Community Corrections is working to address the opioid epidemic. (Jeff wrote about some of the other things the government is doing here.) Under a new administrative policy, North Carolina probation officers are carrying Naloxone kits to respond to probationers and others experiencing a drug overdose. The policy raises questions, including some related to the limited immunity available under the Good Samaritan law in G.S. 90-96.2.
State v. Thompson Tells a Tale of Two Facebook Screenshots
After Roshawn Thompson picked up his cousin Kendall Rascoe from the Greenville mall in November 2014, Thompson and a friend, Andre Grey, robbed Rascoe at gunpoint. At Thompson’s armed robbery trial, his defense attorney sought to cross examine Rascoe about Facebook messages he sent to Thompson earlier in the day asking whether Thompson could get some marijuana for him while he was in Greenville. Rascoe denied sending the message and testified that he just happened to run into Thompson at the mall. The State objected to the admission of the screenshot of the messages.
Later in the trial, the State sought to introduce a screenshot of a picture of Thompson and Grey copied from Thompson’s Facebook page. Rascoe showed the investigating detective the picture for purposes of identifying Thompson and Grey. Thompson objected to the admission of the screenshot, in which both of his middle fingers were extended.
How did the trial court rule? Did it make the right call?
Appeals of Expunction Decisions
A short opinion issued recently by the Court of Appeals, State v. J.C., ___ N.C. App. ___ (Sept. 19, 2017), concerns two open questions about appellate review of a trial judge’s expunction decision. How can a party obtain appellate review? And, how can the person who petitions for an expunction make sure that the records of the appellate proceeding remain confidential? The Court’s opinion does not expressly address those issues, but the case provides guidance on both.
Should an Officer Use His or Her Personal Cell Phone to Take Work-Related Photographs?
I’ve been asked several times lately whether it is a good idea for an officer to use his or her personal cell phone to take work-related photographs, such as photographs of a crime scene or photographs of seized items. In this post, I explain why I think that’s OK, so long as it is consistent with agency policy.
News Roundup
On Sunday evening, the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history occurred at a country music concert in Las Vegas. Armed with more than 20 guns, some modified for increased rates of fire, Stephen C. Paddock killed 58 people and wounded more than 500 others by firing upon concert-goers from an elevated position inside the Mandalay Bay hotel. The Las Vegas Review-Journal has comprehensive coverage of the shooting. Keep reading for more news.
Better Than Ever: A New Criminal Case Compendium
As many blog readers know, I’ve been offering my free Criminal Case Compendium since 2008. The Compendium is a collection of U.S. Supreme Court, Fourth Circuit & published N.C. criminal law, procedure and evidence case summaries, arranged by subject. Until now, folks have accessed the Compendium online as a massive 900-page PDF, containing over 3,000 case summaries. That worked okay, but we knew we could do better. And we have. My Criminal Case Compendium has just been re-released in a new format: A dynamic web-based version, designed to help you find the law you need even faster. The robust search feature puts real power behind your keyword search, sorting cases by relevancy. And if you like navigating through a table of contents, that’s still there, only amped up a few notches on the “usability scale.”
The Prior Probation Violation Aggravating Factor
One of the statutory aggravating factors for felony sentencing is that the defendant has, during the 10-year period prior to the commission of the offense now being sentenced, been found to be in willful violation of probation, post-release supervision, or parole. G.S. 15A-1340.16(d)(12a). It sounds straightforward enough, but it turns out to be a little tricky to apply in practice.