The Early Impact of Rodriguez v. United States
About three months ago, the United States Supreme Court decided Rodriguez v. United States, __ U.S. __, 135 S. Ct. 1609 (2015). I wrote about it here. In a nutshell, […]
Whose Call on Confederate Flag License Plates?
Following the shooting deaths of nine black worshippers in June at a historically significant Charleston church and South Carolina’s subsequent removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the […]
Habitual Habituals
North Carolina has a lot of habitual offender laws: habitual felon, violent habitual felon, armed habitual felon, habitual breaking and entering, habitual impaired driving, and habitual misdemeanor assault. A question […]
Plea Bargaining: What Can and Can’t Be on the Table?
Can a prosecutor threaten more serious charges if the defendant refuses to agree to a plea bargain? Can a plea bargain include a promise by the State to be more […]
News Roundup
Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Walter Scott. Freddie Gray. The past year has been dominated by news of encounters between police officers and unarmed black citizens that have resulted in tragedy. […]
Ohio v. Clark: What Does It Mean for Child Protective Services?
[Editor’s note: This post was originally published on the SOG’s civil law blog, On the Civil Side. Nonetheless, given its coverage of Confrontation Clause issues arising from a criminal case, we thought that […]
Hurry Up and Have that DWI Expunged
If you’ve been dragging your feet about having an old DWI expunged, you had better hurry up. A law enacted last week removes convictions for offenses involving impaired driving from […]
NC Court of Appeals Holds that DMV Records Are Non-Testimonial
In my 23-year career as a lawyer no case has had more impact on the criminal justice system than the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Crawford v. Washington. That case […]
Juvenile Code Reform Legislation (HB 879) Becomes Effective December 1, 2015
In a prior post, I wrote about SB 331, which proposed several changes to the delinquency subchapter of the Juvenile Code. That bill didn’t make it. Instead, it became HB […]
News Roundup
I was captivated this week by the escape of drug billionaire Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman from a maximum-security prison in Mexico. He walked out through a mile-long tunnel that led […]