A UNC School of Government Blog
There were so many important stories in North Carolina this week that I couldn’t pick just one as the headliner. Without further ado: Racial Justice Act Nears Repeal. A House committee approved S 306 this week. The bill would, among other things, repeal the Racial Justice Act. A vote in the full House is expected … Read more
Two cases this month from the Court of Appeals, one published and one not, offer different perspectives on the meaning of an appeal for a “trial de novo” in superior court. Neither of the cases speaks directly to what a trial de novo is, but they offer an opportunity to think about the difference between … Read more
There’s been quite a buzz lately about Google Glass, a “wearable computer” that looks like a pair of eyeglasses but that uses the lenses as transparent screens to display information to the user. (For example, the user might have CNN headlines constantly scrolling on the edge of the screen, or might have the glasses show … Read more
May a judge delegate to a probation officer the task of setting the amount of restitution owed to a victim? For several reasons, my standard answer to that recurring question is no. The main reason for my answer is the restitution statutes themselves. The law says that restitution should be ordered “when sentencing a defendant,” … Read more
The state Senate passed its budget this week. It’s different from the Governor’s budget and also from the House budget, so nothing is final and there’s plenty of negotiation left to be done. But the Senate budget has quite a few noteworthy features. It would eliminate Prisoner Legal Services, instead giving inmates access to computer … Read more
The National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendation that states lower their per se blood alcohol concentrations for impaired driving from 0.08 to 0.05 grabbed headlines last week. But the BAC reduction wasn’t NTSB’s only recommendation. Overlooked in the 0.05 hullabaloo was NTSB’s endorsement of the Sniffer. That’s right. The Sniffer. It’s more powerful than a nose. … Read more
[Editor’s Note: My colleague Frayda Bluestein is the author of this post, which she wrote for the School of Government’s blog about local government law. Because she’s not a regular contributor to this blog, she’s not set up in the software as an author, which is why it is posted under my name and picture. … Read more
As I noted in my last post on Rule 404(b) evidence, even when the evidence is relevant to an issue other than propensity or disposition, admissibility is “constrained by the requirements of similarity and temporal proximity.” State v. Beckelheimer, __ N.C. __, 726 S.E.2d 156, 159 (2012) (quoting State v. Al-Bayyinah, 356 N.C. 150, 154 … Read more
The American Psychiatric Association is about to release the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, commonly abbreviated DSM-V and pronounced “DSM five.” This is important to criminal lawyers because mental health issues are litigated in so many criminal cases, and the DSM is the generally accepted authority on mental health diagnoses. By … Read more
There was lots of news this week about judges new and old, so let’s start with that, then move on to the rest: Jeff Hunt, until now the elected district attorney for district 29B (Henderson, Polke, and Transylvania counties), has been named a special superior court judge. Assistant district attorney Doug Pearson will be the … Read more