A UNC School of Government Blog
Yesterday, I noted that the John Edwards jury had been deliberating for nine days. Apparently, nine days was long enough. As the News and Observer notes here, the jurors reported “that they were hopelessly divided on five of the six charges . . . but in unanimous agreement that [Edwards] was not guilty on one … Read more
The John Edwards jury is back today for its ninth day of deliberations. The general feeling seems to be, “what’s taking so long?” This morning, I got to wondering whether nine days is merely really long, or whether it is really, really, spectacularly and historically long. Seems like the former. A few minutes on the … Read more
I wrote here about several types of driver’s license revocations that can result from a person being charged with and convicted of impaired driving under G.S. 20-138.1 as well as about a driver’s ability to obtain a limited driving privilege to mitigate the effects of the revocation that occurs upon conviction. The earlier post omitted … Read more
Although the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Michigan v. Bryant may have signaled a loosening of that Court’s interpretation of the key term “testimonial” as used in the Crawford confrontation clause analysis, a recent N.C. Court of Appeals decision suggests that our courts aren’t so inclined. Recall that under Crawford, testimonial statements by people who … Read more
I thought that if I delayed this post long enough, I would be able to include something about the John Edwards verdict. But there still isn’t one, so I can only speculate that the jury is attempting to set a world record for longest deliberation. Either that, or they’ve got a heck of a Monopoly … Read more
Under the Justice Reinvestment Act (S.L. 2011-192), for probation violations occurring on or after December 1, 2011, the court may only revoke a person’s probation for a violation of the “commit no criminal offense” condition in G.S. 15A-1343(b)(1) or the new statutory absconding condition in G.S. 15A-1343(b)(3a). The court may revoke probation for other violations … Read more
The jury in the John Edwards case is still deliberating. Although I haven’t followed the case closely, I found very interesting one evidentiary ruling that took place during the trial. Recall that the case concerns almost a million dollars that two of Edwards’ friends provided to pay the expenses of, and to hide, Edwards’ pregnant … Read more
Last July, Jamie Markham provided this refresher on aggravating factors in structured sentencing cases in which he discussed, among other provisions, the requirement that the State provide a defendant with written notice of its intent to prove aggravating factors. A reader requested that we follow up by discussing the related notice provision in G.S. 20-179(a1). … Read more
In a prior post on this topic, I began outlining some impermissible types of jury argument. In this post, I’ll continue that discussion with the following additional listing of improper argument: Religious Arguments. The N.C. Supreme Court has repeatedly cautioned against jury arguments based on religion, see, e.g., State v. Barden, 356 N.C. 316 (2002), … Read more
Well, this is embarrassing. “Orange-Chatham District Attorney Jim Woodall has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to . . . probe . . . UNC-Chapel Hill’s African and Afro-American Studies program, following findings of academic fraud by a university review, according to the News and Observer. The former chair of the department was allegedly paid … Read more