A UNC School of Government Blog
The top story of the week concerns Patrick Cannon, who was the mayor of Charlotte until he was arrested Wednesday on federal corruption charges. He resigned his post, as the News and Observer reports in detail here. Some commentators are predicting a trial, with the defense arguing either (a) entrapment or (b) that there was … Read more
We’re holding a seminar on professionalism and ethics for judges at the School of Government next week so I’ve got judicial canons on my mind. Below are five ethical rules many legal professionals may not know about, but probably should. 1. Judges can’t sell Girl Scout cookies. Canon 5(B)(2) of the North Carolina Judicial Code … Read more
Or is it addendums? Take your pick. Regardless, today’s post covers some of the issues that arise when a probation officer files an addendum to a probation violation report. I’ll start with this important point: there is no such thing as an addendum as a matter of statute. An addendum is, rather, a creation of … Read more
I’ve been married to a man for sixteen years. That makes me an expert in men’s dress. If the occasion is formal—an important meeting at work, a cocktail party, a wedding, or a funeral—he wears a suit and tie. If the dress is business casual, he wears slacks and a dress shirt. If we’re going … Read more
In this, my last post in a long series on hearsay exceptions, I’ll address the Rule 804 exception for statements against penal interest. Rule 804(b)(3) creates a hearsay exception for a “statement which was at the time of its making so far contrary to the declarant’s pecuniary or proprietary interest, or so far tended to … Read more
I’m traveling today so I’ll round up the news a bit more briefly than usual: Court of appeals remands lethal injection case. The News and Observer reports here that the court of appeals has remanded a challenge to the state’s lethal injection protocol to superior court for further consideration. Executions likely will remain on hold … Read more
The decades-old state supreme court decision in State v. Knoll, 322 N.C. 535 (1988), dismissing charges against three impaired driving defendants, is confusing. For starters, the Knoll court’s decision hinged in part on its determination that the defendants were unlawfully detained. Yet the court never even mentioned G.S. 15A-534.2—the statute authorizing the detention of impaired … Read more
Last session, the General Assembly added a new subsection to the principal pretrial release statute, G.S. 15A-534. The new provision took effect on December 1, 2013, and has proven to be extremely frustrating to magistrates. It also raises some legal issues. The provision states: When conditions of pretrial release are being determined for a defendant … Read more
When a person is convicted and sentenced, the sentence generally starts right away. G.S. 15A-1353(a). The judge can delay the start of the sentence, as discussed in this prior post, but that is the exception to the rule. About the only other thing that can put the brakes on the start of a sentence is … Read more
Rule 804 contains five hearsay exceptions that apply when the declarant is unavailable. I addressed one of them—the residual exception—in a prior post. Another one of the five—statements of family history—rarely arises in the criminal law so I won’t spend any time on it. In this post I’ll tackle two of the Rule 804 exceptions: … Read more