Recent blog posts - 294 of 396

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 […]

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 . . […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The federal government’s “sequester,” a package of across-the-board budget cuts, starts today. Federal criminal justice agencies like the Bureau of Prisons aren’t happy about it. As NPR summarizes, “[c]orrections officers […]

In State v. Friend, ___ N.C. App. ___, 724 S.E.2d 85 (2012), the Court of Appeals addressed the district court’s authority when, after the court refuses to allow a continuance, […]

As expected, the number of people on post-release supervision (PRS) is on the rise. After Justice Reinvestment, all felons with offense dates on or after December 1, 2011 who serve […]

In Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692 (1981), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an officer’s authority under the Fourth Amendment to detain—without reasonable suspicion or probable cause—people at a residence […]