A UNC School of Government Blog
The lead story of the week – besides the beginning of the ACC tournament, naturally – is the introduction of S 306, a bill designed to break the logjam in the execution of death sentences by, among other things, addressing concerns about medical personnel participating in executions; allowing flexibility regarding the procedures for lethal injection; and … Read more
Drunk driving has long been a phrase in the national lexicon of terms related driving and public safety. Over the past decade, a companion term—drugged driving—has entered into common usage as policy makers have focused their attention on reducing the incidence of driving while impaired by substances other than alcohol. The problem, of course, is … Read more
I previously posted here about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Chaidez and its holding that Padilla does not apply retroactively. The Court’s ruling meant that lawful permanent resident Roselva Chaidez failed in her attempt to overturn her pre-Padilla federal convictions on the basis that her lawyer neglected to tell her that they would … Read more
The Supreme Court of North Carolina decided Lovette v. Department of Correction last Friday. The case has nothing to do with Laurence Lovette—the man found guilty of killing UNC student body president Eve Carson—whose case was also recently before our appellate courts (discussed here). Rather, it concerned Clyde Vernon Lovette and fellow petitioner Charles Lynch, … Read more
I’ve had several questions lately about driving slowly, so I took some time this weekend to add a section to my paper on traffic stops on the subject. The new section appears below as today’s blog post, and the complete updated paper is available here. Driving substantially under the posted speed limit is not itself … Read more
3-D printing is in the news this week. You know, 3-D printing, where a machine makes “a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model . . . using an additive process, where successive layers of material [basically, melted plastic] are laid down in different shapes.” It is now possible to 3-D … Read more
It’s time for another update to my sex offender flow chart. The latest version is available here. As in the prior versions, everything to do with sex offender registration is on the front and everything to do with satellite-based monitoring (SBM) is on the back. Here is a summary of the changes in the latest … Read more
In a post here I discussed the procedure a trial judge should follow when a deliberating jury asks to review evidence. In that post I noted that the judge must exercise discretion when responding to the jury’s request. The types of factors that the trial court might consider include: the significance of the evidence; a … Read more
Do law-abiding North Carolina residents have a right to carry a gun openly in public? Generally, yes. Federal constitutional right? The Supreme Court has recently ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms, including handguns, District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), and that it protects that right from … Read more
Trial courts may ultimately control their calendars, but there certainly is some power-sharing along the way. The constraints on a trial district court’s authority to manage the flow of litigation are particularly significant in impaired driving cases. Indeed, G.S. 20-139.1(e2) requires that implied consent cases in district court be continued until the chemical analyst who analyzed … Read more