Making Marijuana the Lowest Law Enforcement Priority

Last week, a legislative committee at the General Assembly rejected a bill that would have permitted medicinal use of marijuana. The News and Observer covered the story here, and the bill itself is here. There doesn’t appear to be any chance that the legislature will follow Colorado and Washington and make recreational marijuana legal under … Read more

News Roundup

For the first time ever, the North Carolina Prosecutors’ Trial Manual is available to the general public for purchase from the School of Government bookstore. The brand-new Fifth Edition, completely revised by my colleague Bob Farb, is offered here in PDF format. It costs $175 and weighs in at over 950 pages, covering nearly every … Read more

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U.S. Supreme Court Ruling: Padilla Is Not Retroactive

The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided Chaidez v. United States, 568 U.S. __ (Feb. 20, 2013), holding that Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U. S. ___ (2010), isn’t retroactive. Padilla held that criminal defense attorneys must inform non-citizen clients of the risks of deportation arising from guilty pleas. As I noted in a post here, Padilla … Read more

Supreme Court: Alert by a Trained or Certified Drug Dog Normally Provides Probable Cause

Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided Florida v. Harris, holding that when a trained and certified drug dog alerts on a vehicle, that normally provides probable cause to search the car, even if there are no records proving that the dog has previously performed well at detecting drugs in the field. I mentioned Harris in my … Read more

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Whose Burden is it?

The State’s failure to accord a defendant his or her statutory implied consent rights as set forth in G.S. 20-16.2 may render the results of any ensuing breath test inadmissible. When a defendant moves to suppress breath test results based on such a violation, questions frequently arise regarding whether the State bears the burden of demonstrating compliance … Read more

News Roundup

In terms of having an impact on a large number of people, the biggest news of the week may be yesterday’s announcement by Transportation Secretary Tony Tata. He proclaimed that the DMV will follow the Attorney General’s advice and will issue driver’s licenses to young illegal immigrants who are protected from deportation under the Deferred … Read more

Probation Officers’ Arrest Authority in Deferral Cases

Can a probation officer arrest a person being supervised pursuant to a deferred prosecution agreement or G.S. 90-96 judgment? I’ve been asked that question a lot lately. I suspect it is coming up more often now that G.S. 90-96 is mandatory for consenting defendants. The short answer, in my opinion, is that when a probation … Read more

Abolishing Judgeships: Can They Do That?

One of the livelier issues in last week’s General Assembly was the Senate’s move to abolish 12 of the 15 special superior court judgeships. Senate Bill 10, which would affect important executive branch boards as well, passed the Senate easily and was sent to the House, but questions remain about the authority to cut judges’ … Read more