The Supreme Court just decided Turner v. United States, rejecting the Brady claims of several defendants convicted of a brutal and highly publicized murder in Washington, D.C. Although the Court […]
The General Assembly passed a $23 billion state budget bill this week that includes provisions likely of interest to blog readers. In what would be a significant change to the […]
In Packingham v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down G.S. 14-202.5, North Carolina’s ban on sex offenders accessing commercial social networking websites. The law violates […]
An ancient maxim of the law is ignorantia juris non excusat, or ignorance of the law does not excuse. Put another way, it is presumed that the public knows the […]
Over the weekend, the judge presiding over Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial declared a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. I hadn’t followed the case […]
On Wednesday, a man with a rifle ambushed Republican members of Congress at a park in Virginia as the lawmakers held a morning baseball practice in preparation for the annual […]
Over two years ago I said I would someday try to sort North Carolina’s reportable sex crimes into the tiers set out in the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification […]
Two of last week’s opinions from the North Carolina Supreme Court address significant legal issues arising in impaired driving cases. In State v. Godwin, the supreme court reversed the court […]
Here’s a question that arose during a recent class: Suppose that a party in a criminal case seeks to introduce forensic evidence from a discipline of questionable validity, such as […]
Live and photo lineups and show-ups implicate constitutional and statutory requirements. This post will focus on the statutory requirements. For constitutional requirements, see pages 594-98 in Arrest, Search, and Investigation […]