North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

The rules limiting consecutive sentences for misdemeanors can be tricky. This post addresses some of the issues that come up from time to time.

Joshua Wilson had just pulled his truck out of the driveway of a residence in Burlington when he saw a police car parked in the road in front of him. A uniformed officer had gotten out of the car and was walking toward the residence. When the officer saw Wilson, he waived his hands back and forth in the air to tell Wilson to stop his car. Wilson stopped. The officer approached the truck on the driver’s side. The window was down, and he smelled the odor of alcohol. Wilson was arrested shortly thereafter for driving while impaired. The question on appeal was whether he was seized by the officer when he stopped his truck.

The new edition of Arrest, Search, and Investigation in North Carolina, Fifth Edition, 2016 is now available. Continue reading for additional information.

The police can fly a plane over your house and look down to see whether you are growing marijuana in your backyard. California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207 (1986). But can the police fly a plane over everyone’s house, all the time, and record everything visible from the sky? This isn’t a law school hypothetical.

Diners at a Washington D.C. pizza restaurant, Comet Ping Pong, were terrified Sunday when a North Carolina man, Edgar M. Welch of Salisbury, entered the restaurant and fired a rifle in an effort to “self investigate” an online story known as “Pizzagate.”  Keep reading for more details about this bizarre incident and for more news of the week.

May probation pursuant to a deferred prosecution or conditional discharge include incarceration?

The court of appeals held yesterday in State v. Turner, __ N.C. App. ___ (2016), that the issuance of a magistrate’s order charging a defendant with driving while impaired did not toll the two-year statute of limitations for misdemeanors. Because the defendant was not tried within two years of the offense, the appellate court ruled that the trial court properly dismissed the charges. This opinion is as big as surprise to criminal procedure experts as the outcome of last month’s presidential election was to pollsters. Does it mean that district courts must dismiss charges for misdemeanor offenses that occurred more than two years ago?

Twenty-five years ago the North Carolina Supreme Court departed from national standards on attorney-client decision-making and gave clients greater control over the direction of their case, including trial strategy and tactics. Since then, the North Carolina courts have sorted through various matters on which attorneys and clients have disagreed. A recent decision, State v. Ward (Nov. 1, 2016), applies and perhaps expands one of the exceptions to client control over the case.

This post addresses three recurrent issues concerning eyewitness identification:

1. When, if at all, is expert testimony about eyewitness identification admissible?
2. When, if at all, is an indigent defendant entitled to funds with which to hire an expert on eyewitness identification?
3. May jury instructions, rather than expert testimony, be used to inform the jury about factors relevant to the accuracy of an eyewitness identification?

As the Charlotte Observer reports, Mecklenburg District Attorney Andrew Murray announced Wednesday that the officer who fatally shot Keith Lamont Scott earlier this year lawfully used deadly force and will not face criminal charges.  Murray explained that a CMPD and SBI investigation into the shooting indicated that Scott was armed with a handgun during the deadly confrontation with officers and ignored commands to drop the weapon.  According to another report by the Observer, protestors marched from CMPD headquarters to the city center following the announcement; speakers at the protest called for increased police transparency.  Keep reading for more news.