The Supreme Court of North Carolina just decided State v. Snead, a case about the authentication of surveillance video. The court adopted a more relaxed approach to authentication than the court of appeals had taken. Because the authentication of video is an increasingly common issue, it is worth digging into the case.
News Roundup
Officer-involved shootings have been a frequent topic of national news in recent months. This week, there have been notable developments in two North Carolina cases. First, the News and Observer reports that a Harnett County grand jury declined to indict a sheriff’s deputy, Nicholas Kehagias, who shot and killed John Livingston in November. The report indicates that the decision comes “after months of unease in Harnett County” that included protests in front of the courthouse by Livingston’s friends and family. The jury reportedly was asked to consider second-degree murder charges. Though Kehagias will not face criminal charges, the News and Observer reports that Livingston’s family will pursue a civil case against him.
The other North Carolina case in the news involves a February incident in which Raleigh police officer D.C. Twiddy shot and killed Akiel Denkins. WRAL reports that Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman announced Wednesday that no criminal charges will be filed against Twiddy. The announcement follows an SBI investigation into the incident. The report says that community leaders “appeal[ed] for calm in the community” at a prayer vigil on Wednesday night, and notes that local officials praised the community for maintaining calm throughout the investigation. Keep reading for more news:
Bartenders’ Duty to Cut Off Service to Intoxicated Patrons
Servers who work for restaurants and bars that sell alcoholic beverages pursuant to an ABC permit are prohibited by G.S. 18B-305(a) from knowingly selling or giving alcoholic beverages to a person who is intoxicated. Violation of this provision is a Class 1 misdemeanor and may result in suspension of the establishment’s ABC permit. In cases where overserving results in injury, the restaurant or bar also may be liable for the damages that result. I’ve often wondered how servers know when to say when. After all, they are engaged in the business of selling alcoholic beverages—drinks that affect the brain functioning of everyone who consumes them. When does the statutory duty override their business interests?
Differences Between North Carolina and Federal Possession-of-Firearm by Felon Offenses Concerning the Prior Conviction Element Disqualifying Possession of a Firearm
Federal law and North Carolina law each prohibit in their own ways the possession of a firearm by a felon and, under federal law, certain domestic violence misdemeanors as well. A recent Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals case ruled that a North Carolina felony conviction did not qualify to prove the federal offense of possession of a firearm by felon. The fact that this conviction likely would qualify for the North Carolina offense leads to this post that provides a general overview of the differences.
News Roundup
As previously noted by the News Roundup, the FBI was able to unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terror attacks without Apple’s assistance. Now that the FBI has this capability, local law enforcement agencies and district attorneys’ offices anticipate that they will ask the FBI to help access cellphones in investigations of criminal offenses, according to a report from the Charlotte Observer. The report indicates that about 20 percent of the phones examined by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s cybercrime unit are encrypted and the unit has been unable to access information on the devices. Keep reading for more news.
Fix It and Forget It—Without Making a Trip to the Courthouse
A few years ago, my babysitter texted me that she was going to be late because she had been pulled over by a police officer on the way to our house. When she arrived, I was in full-on substitute parent and attorney mode. Are you okay, I asked? What happened? She was nonplussed by the whole affair. Her registration had expired a few months before. She hadn’t noticed. The officer explained that if she renewed her registration and provided proof of that to the assistant district attorney on her court date, the charges would be dismissed. Oh, I said (slightly deflated that she needed absolutely no input from me—a so-called expert). But she did have to go to court to clear all this up. And that required parking in downtown Raleigh on a weekday, finding her way to the appropriate courtroom and standing in line to pay her ticket. A new procedure, soon to be rolled out statewide by the Administrative Office of the Courts, will do away with this last step, preventing hundreds of thousands of citizens from having to appear in court to have their motor vehicle law charges dismissed upon proof of compliance with the law.
Satellite-Based Monitoring after Grady
In Grady v. North Carolina, 575 U.S. __, 135 S. Ct. 1368 (2015), the Supreme Court concluded that North Carolina’s satellite-based monitoring (SBM) program for sex offenders is a search. The Court left to the lower courts the question of whether the search is “unreasonable” under the Fourth Amendment. The lower courts have started to answer it.
The Results Are In: Trial Judges’ Views of IDS
In 2015, the Office of Indigent Defense Services (IDS) asked the School of Government to conduct an online survey of how superior and district court judges view IDS’s administration of indigent defense in North Carolina. Last week, the School issued its report of the survey results, Trial Judges’ Perceptions of North Carolina’s Office of Indigent Defense Services: A Report on Survey Results (March 2016) (referred to below as the Report). The verdict? Judges have a positive view of IDS’s performance, overall and in several key areas, but the results include a few warning signs for indigent defense.