Recent blog posts - 257 of 400

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.

In my first Warrantless Stops 101 post, I offered these basic questions to frame the analysis:

1. Did a seizure occur?
2. If so and it was a stop, was it supported by reasonable suspicion or other valid basis?
3. If reasonable suspicion supported the stop, was the officer’s subsequent conduct sufficiently limited in scope?
4. If the seizure was an arrest, was it supported by probable cause?
5. If the arrest was supported by probable cause, was the search permissible?

My first post focused on whether a seizure occurred. This one looks at whether the stop was supported by reasonable suspicion. If so, the stop itself is constitutional and the only remaining issue is whether the officer’s conduct exceeded the scope of the stop, a topic I’ll take up in a later post.

Thirteen-year-old Nathan Clark and his teammates traveled from Winston-Salem to Raleigh last Friday night to play in a weekend soccer tournament. The team never took the field.  As Clark slept in his hotel room Friday evening, a gun discharged in an adjacent room, sending a bullet through the wall and into the back of Clark’s head.  Clark died before he could be transported to the hospital.

The man in the room next door, Randall Louis Vater, was a convicted felon who was prohibited by law from possessing a gun. Vater had been out of jail only two weeks, having been released on October 25 after serving a sentence for violating a domestic violence protective order.  Vater was charged with involuntary manslaughter and possession of a firearm by a felon based on Clark’s death. He is being held in the Wake County Jail under a $1 million bond.

Authorities have said nothing about how the gun went off. Assuming that the discharge was accidental, could Vater be charged with first-degree murder under the theory of felony murder?  

It might not seem like a sexy story, but in terms of practical impact, the rollout of a new system for handling certain traffic cases in Forsyth County is a big deal. The Winston-Salem Journal has the story here. The super condensed version is that the new system is for people who have been charged with infractions that the State would normally dismiss upon proof of compliance, like expired tags or no operator’s license. These defendants can scan their citations and the paperwork proving that they’ve addressed the problem, the DA’s office can review the submissions, and if appropriate, the DA’s office will dismiss the charges. If you have experience with the system, please post a comment.

[Update, May 2016: In this post on the SOG’s civil blog, Sara discusses two new appellate cases concerning the definition of abuse in the child discipline context.]

[Editor’s note: Today’s post is by Sara DePasquale, a relatively recent addition to the SOG faculty. Sara works in the areas of juvenile law and child welfare, and we are delighted to welcome her to the blog.]

Last Tuesday, Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson pled no contest to misdemeanor reckless assault after being charged in September with felony child abuse for disciplining his 4 year old son with a switch.  Since the charges, he has been on the NFL “Commissioners Exempt List” and unable to play. Nike terminated his contract on Tuesday, and his future with the NFL remains uncertain.

The blog was dormant yesterday in honor of Veterans Day. Belated thanks to those who have served. [Editor’s note: Including Jamie, who was a captain in the Air Force before law school.]

This time last year saw the opening of North Carolina’s first veterans treatment court in Harnett County. The governor and other leaders attended the opening ceremony. A year later, the court is graduating its first class today. Other veterans courts are coming online across the state. Cumberland’s court gets underway this week, and others are planned in Durham, Buncombe, and other counties—primarily those that are home to the state’s larger VA medical centers.

Years ago, the School of Government did quite a bit of training for the Highway Patrol and other law enforcement officers. These days, we focus most of our criminal law courses on judges, lawyers, and magistrates. But I still view officers as an important audience for our work, and I recently wrote an article for Police Chief magazine that is meant to help officers obtain valid search warrants for digital devices.

Shea blogged here about the same-sex marriage rulings in North Carolina’s federal courts, and the potential criminal law and other issues those rulings present for North Carolina magistrates. There have been a bevy of developments since, including a decision by the Sixth Circuit upholding a ban on same-sex marriage, apparently teeing the issue up for the Supreme Court, and a dispute between Senator Phil Berger and the Administrative Office of the Courts about whether magistrates may refuse to perform same-sex marriages based on sincerely-held religious beliefs. WRAL covers the latter story, including a link to the latest AOC letter on the issue, here. I also recommend my colleague Michael Crowell’s detailed exploration of the issue, here. But that’s far from the only big story of the week.