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Locally, the big criminal justice news was former UNC basketball player P.J. Hairston getting a criminal summons. He allegedly punched a high school basketball player during a pickup game at […]

Before Structured Sentencing we had Fair Sentencing. Under Fair Sentencing, there was no such thing as “prior record level,” but a prior conviction could qualify as an aggravating factor, exposing […]

Last month, the court of appeals decided State v. Hogan, __ N.C. App. __, 758 S.E.2d 465 (2014), a case about the use of a defendant’s prior convictions from New […]

A man in Charlotte was struck by a stray bullet on July 4th. The police say that “it appears that it was not an intentional shooting but that someone . […]

I wrote previously (here and here) about the “donut hole” in the probation law regarding absconding. In short, due to a wrinkle in legislative effective dates, persons on probation for […]

A couple of news items caught struck me during this holiday-shortened week. Impact of Riley on pending cases. I’ve started to have questions about the impact of Riley v. California, […]

Yesterday, the court of appeals decided a very important traffic stop case. Its ruling strictly limits officers to pursuing the original justification for a traffic stop, and prohibits officers from […]

With the amendment of Rule 702 of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence in 2011, North Carolina became a Daubert state. That change means that trial judges in this state, […]

To prove that a person drove a vehicle while under the influence of an impairing substance in violation of G.S. 20-138.1(a)(3), the State must establish that the defendant was impaired […]

If you thought that last week’s announcement of the 2013 Punishment Chart for North Carolina Crimes and Motor Vehicle Offenses was exciting, you will be even more entranced by this […]