Recent Blog Posts Page 198 on North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Today in Washington, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the forty-fifth President of the United States.  By their nature, presidential inaugurations always are massive undertakings for law enforcement agencies.  President-elect Trump’s is no exception, and news reports suggest that it may pose unique challenges.  In addition to significant numbers of supporters, D.C. Police reportedly are preparing for many thousands of protestors to flock to the nation’s capital for the event.  Keep reading for more news.

Can a court respond to the same offending behavior by a probationer more than once?

Author’s Note: The North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals decision in State v. Brice, which is discussed in the body of this post.  You can read about the state supreme court’s ruling here.  

Everyone knows that having a criminal history is bad. John wrote earlier this week about C-CAT, an on-line, searchable database that helps folks identify many of the non-criminal consequences of a conviction—like losing a professional license. The criminal consequences of an earlier conviction are, in contrast, much easier to figure out. A criminal record generally results in greater punishment for new crimes. For a handful of North Carolina crimes, a prior conviction for a similar offense increases the grade of the new offense – sometimes converting what would otherwise be a misdemeanor to a felony. Special rules govern the charging, arraignment, and trial for such offenses. The failure to follow them is the subject of considerable case law from our state’s appellate courts, including two recent opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

Several years ago the School obtained a grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to create an online, searchable database of the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction in North Carolina. In 2012, after two years of legal and IT work, we launched the Collateral Consequences Assessment Tool, or C-CAT for short, to assist attorneys, reentry professionals, affected individuals, and policymakers in understanding the impact of a criminal conviction. We’re happy to announce we have given C-CAT a new look. It is available, still at no charge, at http://ccat.sog.unc.edu/.

According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, the nation’s police officers say that “recent high-profile fatal encounters between black citizens and officers have made their jobs riskier, aggravated tensions between police and blacks, and left many officers reluctant to fully carry out some of their duties.” In a survey of more than 8,000 officers, roughly three-quarters of respondents said that they are more reluctant to use force when it is appropriate and a similar number reported less willingness to stop and question people who seem suspicious.  While these results are generating headlines, the survey is wide-ranging and includes a variety of information about officers’ experiences in a challenging profession to which an overwhelming majority (96 percent) feel strongly committed.  Keep reading for more news.

The 2016-2017 edition of the North Carolina Sentencing Handbook with Felony, Misdemeanor, and DWI Sentencing Grids, authored by me and Shea, is available from the School of Government. Like previous editions, it contains instructions on felony sentencing, misdemeanor sentencing, and DWI sentencing; the sentencing grids themselves; and various appendices that may be helpful in your work.

Among the questions I am most frequently asked is: What is the proper charge when a person violates an alcohol concentration restriction on his or her driver’s license? As soon as I answer that question, the next one comes in: Is the answer the same if the person violates an ignition interlock restriction? When I say that it is not, additional questions follow. If you too are unsure about the rules for charging and processing a person who is suspected of violating one of these types of license restrictions, I’m hoping the rest of this post will clear things up. 

The North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. Lowe (December 21, 2016) ruled that a search warrant validly authorized a search of a vehicle parked on the driveway of the premises and within its curtilage, and it reversed a contrary ruling by the Court of Appeals (State v. Lowe, 774 S.E.2d 893, 21 July 2015). This post discusses the supreme court’s ruling.

Judges are lawyers, and lawyers are subject to discipline by the State Bar. Does that mean that judges are subject to discipline by the State Bar? Generally not, according to a recent ruling by the Supreme Court of North Carolina.

As the New York Times reports, the sentencing phase of Dylann Roof’s federal death penalty trial began this week following his December conviction on thirty-three charges arising from murdering nine people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.  Roof is representing himself during this phase of the trial.  In a brief opening statement, Roof repeatedly told jurors that he was not mentally ill.  In what is described as a “white supremacist manifesto” disclosed during the prosecution’s opening statement, Roof wrote that he did not regret his actions and had “not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed.”  An opinion piece from NBC News argues that Roof “has a constitutional right not to try to spare his own life.”  Keep reading for more news.