Recent blog posts - 238 of 400

The court of appeals gave the green light last week for law enforcement officers to continue to testify as scientific experts in DWI cases involving retrograde extrapolation–notwithstanding the legislature’s amendment of Rule 702 to adopt the Daubert standard. The court held in State v. Turbyfill that a field technician for the Forensic Test for Alcohol Branch of DHHS (FTA), who was trained as a law enforcement officer and chemical analyst (which authorized him to conduct implied consent testing on breath testing instruments), was properly allowed to testify about a retrograde extrapolation calculation he performed using an FTA form. The technician’s inability to explain whether the rate he used to make the calculation was an “average,” a “mid-point,” or a “conservative” rate—he used all three terms to describe it—did not disqualify him as an expert since he “provided the trial court with a list of some thirty-nine articles . . . regarding blood alcohol research,” and “with North Carolina cases in which this Court upheld the use of retrograde extrapolation to establish blood alcohol content.”

Last week, a local news outlet reported that the 17-year-old quarterback of a Cumberland County high school was benched when school officials learned he was under investigation for allegedly sending “sexually explicit” photos of himself to his 16-year-old girlfriend. According to the report, officers took the teenager’s phone while investigating another incident and discovered photos of himself and his girlfriend on the phone. Now, both the teenager and his girlfriend are facing charges for “sexting” in what appears to have been a consensual exchange of nude photos between two teens in a dating relationship. Judging by the string of harsh comments to this report (which use various derogatory words to describe the charges), many people are outraged that such behavior, while improper, is a crime. Instead, they suggest that the behavior is a discipline issue that should be privately addressed by parents at home. In response to these concerns, this post examines the criminal laws in NC that possibly cover sexting and discusses their application to minors.

All eyes were on Houston this week, where Shannon Miles has been charged with murdering Deputy Darren Goforth. Miles allegedly approached Goforth from behind at a gas station and fired 15 rounds into the officer. This CNN story has the details. It includes a statement by the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police that “In the last few years, ambush attacks aimed to kill or injure law enforcement officers have risen dramatically.” I hope that’s a blip, not a trend.

The Statewide Misdemeanant Confinement Program took a hit this week in the court of appeals. In Richmond County Board of Education v. Cowell, about half of the money that comes into the program fund—the $50 fee for anyone found responsible for an improper equipment violation—was deemed to be punitive. Under the North Carolina Constitution, the money must therefore go to the public schools.

Fake IDs were ever-present on campus when I was an undergraduate. There were several varieties: a “novelty” driver’s license obtained from a private vendor, a doctored version of the underage person’s real driver’s license, a duplicate driver’s license from an older relative, friend or acquaintance who resembled the underage person, or, the gold standard: a DMV-issued driver’s license with the underage person’s picture but an older person’s name, address, and birthdate. These days, on-line vendors hawk fake IDs, and facial recognition software makes it nearly impossible to obtain the gold standard fake ID from DMV. Otherwise, not all that much has changed in the collegiate fake-id market.

Often an underage person’s use of fraudulent identification leads to charges that are purely alcohol-related, such as the unlawful purchase or consumption of alcohol by an underage person. But other criminal charges may stem directly from the use of the fake ID.

I’ve had the same question several times recently: can a magistrate issue a search warrant for a computer or a cell phone? The answer is yes. This post explains why that’s so, and why there’s some confusion about the issue.

A caller recently asked me: Does Crawford apply at pretrial proceedings, such as suppression hearings and hearing on motions in limine? Neither Crawford nor any of the Court’s subsequent cases […]

Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes has been sentenced to 12 life terms plus 3,378 years in prison. He did not receive the death penalty due to the vote of a single holdout juror. CNN’s stories about the sentencing hearing are here and here; the statements from the surviving victims and the families of the deceased are difficult to read.

Two revisions to North Carolina’s primary jail credit statute, G.S. 15-196.1, will kick in on December 1, 2015. Both of them benefit defendants.

School is back in session across North Carolina, but many high school students and their parents may be disappointed that driver’s education is not. Driver’s education has long been a staple of the high school experience in this state. I vividly recall my afternoon class in the Northwood High School auditorium with driving instructor Ed Kitchen. I can see him now with his foot perched by the passenger-side brake as we drove the rural roads of Chatham County. What has interrupted this rite of passage at some North Carolina high schools?