North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

“Only an idiot drives on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus.” So read a sign that an Ohio judge ordered a woman to wear after being convicted for the […]

May a man be held criminally responsible for the contents of his girlfriend’s purse? Yes, on the facts of State v. Mitchell, the court of appeals ruled yesterday. In Mitchell, […]

This Gallup survey reports that Americans view lawyers negatively. Perhaps the survey respondents should get to know Chris Beechler, a criminal defense attorney from Winston-Salem. This Winston-Salem Journal article describes […]

In a paper here I analyze Williams v. Illinois, the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest confrontation decision on substitute analyst testimony. Because Williams was a fractured opinion in which no rationale […]

A new justice is coming to the North Carolina Supreme Court. Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson is stepping down, and Governor Perdue says that she will appoint a successor. She plans to […]

I’ve written several posts (the latest one here) about the availability of a limited driving privilege for a person whose driver’s license is revoked upon conviction of impaired driving in […]

G.S. 14-196.3 prohibits “cyberstalking,” which the statute generally defines to mean using electronic communications to threaten, extort, make an abusive or embarrassing false statement about, or repeatedly harass another person. […]

In 2008 the General Assembly enacted two new crimes, rape of a child by an adult offender under G.S. 14-27.2A, and sexual offense with a child by an adult under […]

G.S. 90-95(a)(1) makes it a crime to knowingly sell or deliver a controlled substance to another person. As a general rule, the delivery of marijuana—a Schedule VI controlled substance—is a […]

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It puts me in a good mood. I suspect that certain holidays put other people — like judges — in a good mood, too. And […]