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I’m not buying a lottery ticket this week. The court of appeals’ opinion in State v. McKenzie, published yesterday, casts serious doubt on my wagering skills. And if my wagers […]
Diminished capacity is among the most commonly asserted defenses, particularly in first-degree murder cases, but I realized yesterday that I had never blogged about it. Today, I will remedy that. […]
Happy New Year! I feel like I spent most of 2012 talking about Justice Reinvestment. Let’s start 2013 with a more agreeable subject—like sex offenders. In one of its final […]
New Governor Pat McCrory may be more focused on economic policy than on the courts and criminal justice, but he’s still done several things in his first days in office […]
In a post here I discussed a view of the person. In this post I’ll address the more common issue of a jury view. A trial judge may allow a […]
Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court decided an important competency case. Let’s start the discussion with a quiz. Which of the following statements is true? a. A trial may be […]
[Editor’s note: Today we welcome Jim Drennan to the blog. Jim has been here at the School of Government for almost 40 years, though he took a couple of years […]
Horses are vehicles, according to our state court of appeals. In State v. Dellinger, 73 N.C. App. 685 (1985), the court upheld the defendant’s conviction for impaired driving based upon […]
The New Year is off and running. Yesterday was the day the mandate issued on the Hest Technologies video sweepstakes case, which I previously summarized here. That means that law […]
Suppose in a robbery case that the State asks the defendant–who does not plan to testify–to stand in the courtroom wearing a mask allegedly worn by the robber. The defense […]