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Have you ever been convicted of or pleaded nolo contendere (no contest) to any violation of the law other than minor traffic tickets?

Millions of people, many of whom were convicted of petty crimes, must answer this question (a favorite of employers) in the affirmative. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reported in a recent article on the processing of misdemeanor crimes that nearly 1 in 3 Americans has a criminal record.  While those records are based on arrests, not convictions, a substantial percentage of people charged with misdemeanor offenses are convicted.  North Carolina’s district courts, for example, disposed of more than 450,000 misdemeanor (non-traffic) criminal cases in the 2013-2014 fiscal year.  A third of those cases resulted in convictions. 

As of December 1, 2014, North Carolina criminal defendants may waive their right to a jury trial in superior court and instead opt for a bench trial. This is because of the state constitutional amendment that voters approved this fall. (I wrote about the amendment here.) But how exactly is waiver supposed to work?

One of my all-time favorite emails was received from a prosecutor who was handling a drug trafficking case. The email included a picture, plucked from what purported to be the defendant’s Facebook page, showing the defendant sitting on a pile of cash (later determined to be $1.6 million!), holding an AK-47. Jeff has written (here) about authenticating photographs from social media sites. But what of the other evidence that is mined from social media—how is that authenticated? A recent Second Circuit case adheres to the line that the relevant standard isn’t particularly high but finds that the prosecution didn’t meet it in this case.

It’s December 1. That means a number of new laws come into effect today. WRAL has a good rundown here, while the School’s annual summary of legislation of interest to court officials offers a more comprehensive review. For today’s post I’d like to focus on a sentencing question related to one of the changes that kicks in today: the reduced punishment for possession of marijuana paraphernalia.

Short week, short news roundup. National attention remains focused on Ferguson, Missouri, where attorneys for Michael Brown’s family have weighed in on the prosecutor’s handling of the grand jury proceedings concerning Brown’s shooting. The attorneys “criticized everything from the types of evidence . . . presented to the jury to the way it was presented and the timing of the grand jury’s decision,” according to this story on WRAL. There were several Ferguson-related protests locally, including one that blocked a freeway in Durham. Opinion is certainly divided about the prosecutor’s management of the process, as this Think Progress story notes.

Yesterday, the grand jury in St. Louis County, Missouri , declined to indict officer Darren Wilson in connection with the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Some commentators have criticized the decision of the local prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, to present all the evidence to the grand jury, rather than only evidence that would support an indictment. I don’t think that’s a fair criticism, for reasons I explain below.

Emily Coward and I are glad to share a new resource with you: a reference manual entitled Raising Issues of Race in North Carolina Criminal Cases. If you are a person who likes to have a hard copy on the shelf, you can buy it here. Like our other manuals, it is available for free online at http://defendermanuals.sog.unc.edu. (The electronic platform has been retooled, and I think you will find that it has a nice look and is user-friendly.)

I love highlighting my colleagues’ great work on the blog. Shea already announced her new book this week, but also check out Jessie Smith’s interview on WUNC, talking about the backlog at the State Crime Lab and the practical solutions a working group identified. And take a look at the new electronic platform for all the manuals produced by the School’s Indigent Defense Education group. As a teaser, next week, the blog will feature a newly-released manual that is available on the platform.

I’m a little jet-lagged today. I got back home to Durham early this morning after a long flight. I was attending the Justice Reinvestment National Summit . . . in San Diego. Poor baby! Suffice it to say, the winter weather that gripped the East Coast this week did not extend to Southern California. I won’t lie, it was beautiful. But I promise the lovely setting did not stand in the way of a productive gathering. I want to use today’s post to offer a few reflections on the conference.

The School of Government has been publishing reference books on motor vehicle law since 1947.  The twelfth iteration of a book on motor vehicle law and the law of impaired driving, written by Ben Loeb and Jim Drennan was published in 2000.  The book went out of print a few years ago, though you’ll find dog-eared copies of it in many offices, including mine.  I’m happy to report that a new book in this series now is available:  The Law of Impaired Driving and Related Implied Consent Offenses in North Carolina.