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A few election seasons ago, a campaign sign advocating “Denning for Judge” was posted in our neighborhood. My son noticed it on the way home from school and said, “Mom:  Is Dad running for judge?”  “No, he isn’t,” I said.  Then, in a moment of pique, I said, “Actually, your dad isn’t qualified to be a judge. But I am.” Since I’ve obviously done such a great job teaching civics (and equal rights) to my children, I thought I’d share a bit with you about the selection, qualifications, and work of a North Carolina district court judge—a group of judicial officials with whom I frequently work.

Last April, the United States Supreme Court in Rodriguez v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 1609 (2015), significantly limited the scope of a traffic stop. The officer in Rodriguez completed a traffic stop for driving on the shoulder of a highway after checking the vehicle registration and driver’s licenses of the driver and passenger, conducting a warrant check, returning all documents, and issuing the driver a warning ticket. The officer then asked the driver for consent to walk his drug dog around the vehicle, but the driver refused to give his consent. Nonetheless, the officer told the driver to turn off the ignition, leave the vehicle, and wait for a second officer. When the second officer arrived, the first officer walked his drug dog around the car, and the dog alerted to the presence of drugs. A search of the vehicle revealed methamphetamine. Seven to eight minutes had elapsed from the time the officer issued the written warning until the dog’s alert.

The Supreme Court held Monday that the rule from Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. __ (2012), applies retroactively. In Miller, the Court held that a sentencing regime that makes life without parole mandatory for a murder committed by a defendant under the age of 18 is cruel and unusual punishment. In Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. __ (2016), the Court said that rule likewise applies to defendants whose cases were final before Miller was decided on June 25, 2012.

On January 11, 2016, the Fourth Circuit decided Armstrong v. Village of Pinehurst, a major case concerning the use of tasers by law enforcement officers. The opinion is here. This post summarizes the opinion and explores its implications.

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Americans across the nation observed the national holiday and celebrated Dr. King’s contribution to the Civil Rights Movement.  ABC 11 reports here that N.C. State professor Jason Miller launched a website that contains a restored recording of a November 1962 speech that King delivered in Rocky Mount.  The website explains that King first delivered the famous “I have a dream” refrain during the Rocky Mount speech.  The tape recording of the speech was stored for nearly 50 years before being discovered in a library in 2013.  The analog tape was digitally restored and the nearly hour-long speech is now available for listening on the website.

A case from the court of appeals this week answered a longstanding question about which offenses are “aggravated” for sex offender registration and satellite-based monitoring (SBM) purposes.

There are several reasons why I like Volkswagen’s new “Dad, Stop!” commercial showcasing the emergency braking system in the 2016 Passat.  First, I drive a teenager to school. He jumps out of the car as quickly as possible when we arrive. Apparently there is nothing to be gained socially by being seen with your mother. So I can identify. Second, I was rear-ended a few weeks ago. The back of my car was damaged, and the car that hit mine had to be towed from the scene. All of its airbags deployed on impact.  I’m just glad no one was hurt. Automatic emergency braking (if it works the way it appears to in the commercial) would have prevented that accident.Third, my mother looked over at me in a similar way to the dad in the commercial as we were leaving my wedding rehearsal many years ago. When she looked back ahead, she saw brake lights. She swerved off the road to avoid hitting the car in front of us and ran over a fire hydrant. What a mess. Automatic emergency braking might have gotten us all to the rehearsal dinner on time.

The National Transportation Safety Board also thinks automatic emergency braking, which it calls “collision avoidance technology” is a laudable concept. In fact, promoting the availability of this technology made the NTSB’s 2016 Most Wanted List.  NTSB has issued such a list for more than 25 years. The chairman described the list in a recent press conference as a “roadmap from lessons learned to lives saved.”

Scholar john powell succinctly defines implicit bias as “a habit of the mind.” He explains that our brains have a natural tendency to form associations (for example, we might see a tall person and think “basketball player”) in order to make sense of the 5,000 or so images with which we are bombarded each day. This process happens rapidly at an unconscious level and helps us to navigate the world. However, concerns arise when our brains form associations between race and negative traits. For example, in one recent study, researchers concluded that participants held implicit associations between “Black” and “guilty,” and that such associations predicted how they would evaluate ambiguous evidence. A growing body of scholarship, discussed in the School of Government manual Raising Issues of Race in North Carolina Criminal Cases (see Section 1.3D in particular), suggests that such unconscious associations affect the perceptions and decisions of court actors, and may contribute to disparate treatment and outcomes in the criminal justice system.

The Charlotte Observer reports that North Carolina did not have a Powerball jackpot winner but that two tickets worth $2 million each were sold in the state, one in Raleigh and the other in Spring Lake.  According to the Chicago Tribune, lottery winners should hire lawyers before coming forward to claim their prizes.  According to the ABA Journal, if you participate with others in a ticket-buying group, it may be a good idea to consult with a lawyer before even buying tickets in order to avoid a potentially costly dispute regarding the terms of the joint purchase agreement.  The first thing we do, let’s hire some lawyers, as it were.

Under G.S. 15A-1340.16(d), “[e]vidence necessary to prove an element of the offense shall not be used to prove any factor in aggravation.” The general idea behind that rule is to prevent the defendant from getting extra punishment via an aggravating factor for something that is inherent in the crime of conviction. A similar prohibition existed under Fair Sentencing, so we have a relatively large body of case law that helps us understand the rule.