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Last week, President Trump pardoned Drumstick, a 36-pound turkey. What’s the legal basis for the annual ritual of a president pardoning a turkey? When did the tradition start? And what becomes of the birds post-pardon? This post gives you authoritative information about turkey pardons.
As the Los Angeles Times reports, notorious cult leader and convicted murderer Charles Manson died this week of natural causes at the age of 83. Manson had spent the past five decades in prison in California for his involvement in a string of murders in the summer of 1969. The Times story notes that several of Manson’s followers remain in prison; one, Leslie Van Houten, was granted parole in September of this year but California Governor Jerry Brown has yet to decide whether to release her.
With a long holiday weekend upon us, this is the last blog post of the week. Enjoy the holiday and keep reading for more news.
For today’s post, I conducted a short interview with Tom Maher, the executive director of the Office of Indigent Defense Services (IDS), the statewide agency in North Carolina that oversees the provision of legal representation for indigent defendants in criminal and other cases. We talk about the recent raise in the rates for private assigned counsel doing high-level felony work, the status of public defense funding in North Carolina, and the importance of a robust system of indigent defense generally. Readers may be aware that I served as a private assigned counsel for many years before coming to work at the School of Government, and it’s a topic near and dear to me. Indigent defense is equally important for court actors and citizens of the state, and I hope you find the interview informative. It runs around 13 minutes, with minor edits for the sake of time and clarity. Click here to watch.
Last week, the court of appeals reversed a defendant’s conviction for first-degree murder. That doesn’t happen every day, so let’s unpack the case. The central issue concerns two eyewitnesses’ in-court identifications of the defendant.
A California man with connections to North Carolina, Kevin Janson Neal, killed five people and wounded eight others in a shooting spree in Northern California this week. After killing his wife, Neal drove the streets of Rancho Tehama firing randomly at houses and other structures. Eventually, Neal approached an elementary school and fired multiple shots into the building. The sound of the shots caused school officials to lock the building down, preventing Neal from entering the school and likely saving many lives. Keep reading for more news.
I wrote a comic book about prison. Let me explain why.
The court of appeals last year vacated Sandra Brice’s conviction for habitual misdemeanor larceny for stealing five packs of steaks valued at $70 from a Food Lion in Hickory. The reason? The indictment alleged the steak theft and Brice’s four prior convictions for misdemeanor larceny in a single count. That violated a statutory rule requiring that prior convictions be alleged in a separate count, and, in the court of appeals’ view, deprived the superior court of jurisdiction to enter judgment against Brice for habitual misdemeanor larceny, a felony offense. Earlier this month, the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and remanded the case for reinstatement of the trial court’s judgment. Read on to find out why.
This question in the title of this post came up in a recent class. The specific context involved a domestic violence defendant who was in jail waiting for a judge to set conditions of release pursuant to the 48 hour rule established in G.S. 15A-534.1. But a similar issue arises whenever a magistrate sets conditions of release for a defendant who is unable to make bond and so remains in pretrial detention. An example of a common condition is that the defendant not contact the alleged victim.
For the second time in a month, the leading criminal law news in our country is a staggeringly tragic mass shooting. The Las Vegas shooting in early October was the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, and the shooting this week at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, where 26 people were killed and 20 others injured, is the deadliest shooting by an individual in Texas history. News reports say that roughly half of the victims were children; one family lost members from three generations. The Dallas Morning News has profiles of the victims here. Keep reading for more news.
Two new sentencing enhancements related to gangs will come into effect for offenses committed on or after December 1, 2017.