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Are legal issues keeping you up at night? Have we got a program for you!  Let’s talk it out tomorrow during Office Hours at the Judicial College.

In getting ready for the North Carolina magistrates’ fall conference and a session that I’m teaching on issuing process in domestic violence cases, I began thinking about the ways that North Carolina criminal law addresses domestic violence. The North Carolina General Assembly has made numerous changes and additions in this area of criminal law, collected below. If I omitted some part of North Carolina criminal law involving domestic violence cases, please let me know.

Though there is not an immediate connection to criminal law, a roundup of news of any sort this week would be incomplete without recognition of the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey.  As we all know, the storm brought relentless rain to southeastern Texas this week, causing unprecedented and ongoing flooding in the Houston area.  We commend the law enforcement officers, the first responders, the emergency management professionals, the government officials, and the private citizens who have worked tirelessly to ensure the safety of their communities and neighbors.  Our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by the storm.  Keep reading for more news.

North Carolina is no longer the only state in the U.S. that automatically prosecutes juveniles as adults beginning at age 16. In June, the General Assembly ended a century long practice of prosecuting teens as adults by enacting the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act as part of the 2017 state budget, which raised the age of criminal responsibility to 18. As a result, most 16 and 17-year-olds will be prosecuted in juvenile court beginning December 1, 2019. There are, however, some exceptions. Here’s what you should know about this historic reform.

State v. Johnson, __ N.C. __ (August 18, 2017) opens like a novel:

Defendant was stopped at a red light on a snowy evening. When the light turned green, defendant’s truck abruptly accelerated, turned sharply left, and fishtailed, all in front of a police officer in his patrol car. The officer pulled defendant over for driving at an unsafe speed given the road conditions.

On second thought, maybe this reads more like a bar exam question (or a Dan Fogelberg song).

What say you, barristers?  Was the stop lawful?

Our appellate courts are beginning to issue decisions concerning the impact of the General Assembly’s 2011 changes to North Carolina law on self-defense. A case earlier this summer addressed whether a defendant has a duty to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense in a place where he or she has a “lawful right to be.” See State v. Bass, ___ N.C. App. ___, 802 S.E.2d 477, temp. stay and rev. granted, ___ N.C. ___, 800 S.E.2d 421 (2017). In Bass, the Court of Appeals held that the defendant did not have a duty to retreat and further had the right to have the jury instructed that he did not have a duty to retreat.

This session, the General Assembly passed S.L. 2017-94, which creates a rebuttable presumption that certain domestic violence homicides are premeditated and deliberate and therefore constitute first-degree murder. WRAL explains here that the measure is known as  Britny’s Law “in memory of Britny Jordan Puryear, a 22-year-old who was shot and killed by her live-in boyfriend, Logan McLean, in their Fuquay-Varina home on Nov. 6, 2014, after a four-year abusive relationship.” The bill raises many questions, which this post attempts to answer.

Reactions to the events in Charlottesville last week continue to dominate the news this week as confederate monuments across the nation come under renewed scrutiny.  A statue of Robert E. Lee was removed from the entrance of Duke University Chapel over the weekend, and the Silent Sam statue on UNC’s campus was the focus of protests that garnered national attention.  Several protesters, including a UNC student, were arrested during the Silent Sam demonstration.  Over on the SOG’s Coates’ Canons blog, Adam Lovelady has a post discussing a North Carolina statute which limits the circumstances under which monuments may be removed from public property.  Once obscure, the statute now is one of the most widely analyzed laws in the state.  Keep reading for more news.

A recent appellate case sheds additional light on what it means to abscond from probation.

Legislation enacted by the General Assembly this session again makes it possible for persons convicted of habitual impaired driving to (eventually) have their driving privileges restored.