A UNC School of Government Blog
Is it a crime to attempt to drive while impaired? Consider these facts. Suppose a law enforcement officer sees a person stumble to a car outside of a bar, unlock the car, and sit down in the driver’s seat. While the person fumbles with his keys in an attempt to put the correct one in … Read more
As I’ve noted in prior posts, some people just want to serve their time in prison. For one reason or another, they do not want to be on probation. For similar reasons, many defendants do not want to be on post-release supervision. Post-release supervision (PRS), you’ll recall, is a term of supervised release served at … Read more
The court of appeals recently expanded the community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement, entering a national controversy over the proper scope of the doctrine. This post explains the exception and the disagreement about its proper application. Background: United States Supreme Court. The doctrine was first recognized by the United States Supreme Court in Cady … Read more
In earlier posts I covered the major Rule 803 hearsay exceptions, for which unavailability is immaterial. Rule 804 contains additional hearsay exceptions, but they only apply when the declarant is unavailable. What does unavailability mean? The Rule specifies five circumstances when a declarant is unavailable. The sections below explore them. Privilege. A witness is unavailable … Read more
In Chapel Hill, the top story is District Attorney Jim Woodall’s decision not to charge former UNC employee Deborah Crowder in connection with the athletic/academic/no-show classes scandal. The Herald Sun has the story here, but the key detail is that the decision not to prosecute was based in part on Crowder’s ongoing cooperation, both in … Read more
You don’t have to attend basic law enforcement training to identify a potential impaired driver. Plenty of folks without police training could roll off a list of tell-tale signs, including excessive weaving, driving without headlights, and driving with the windows down in cold weather, particular when those signs are observed in the evening hours in … Read more
Thousands of defendants are sentenced to unsupervised probation each year. They are often first offenders who have been convicted of not-so-serious crimes, so you don’t read much about them in the newspaper or slip opinions from the appellate courts. But there are some aspects of unsupervised probation that are a little tricky, so I decided … Read more
In a series of posts, I’ve been covering some of the hearsay exceptions that arise most commonly in criminal cases. The residual exceptions make that list. Here is your primer on those exceptions. Generally. Even if an out-of-court statement doesn’t fall within a specific hearsay exception, it still may be admissible under the residual exceptions … Read more
Last week the United States Supreme Court in Fernandez v. California (February 25, 2014) clarified an issue left open in its ruling in Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103 (2006): the validity of a consent search by a residential occupant after a co-occupant has previously objected to a search but is no longer physically present … Read more
The SBI is investigating allegations that nude photographs of middle and high school students have been posted on photo-sharing site Instagram without the students’ consent. The investigation began in Wake County but has now reached eight additional counties as well. WRAL has the story here. I imagine that the images first came into circulation through … Read more