This post summarizes published criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during September 2024. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit cases are available here.
New Resources for Protecting Vulnerable Adults in North Carolina
In state fiscal year 2022-2023, county departments of social services in North Carolina received 35,400 reports alleging the abuse, neglect, or exploitation of vulnerable adults. Fifty-six counties across the state have addressed this problem through creating adult protection multidisciplinary teams (MDTs)—groups of professionals from different disciplines who work together to prevent and respond to abuse, … Read more
News Roundup
Our hearts remain with the communities in Western North Carolina devastated by Hurricane Helene. On Wednesday, lawmakers unanimously passed “The Disaster Recovery Act of 2024” allocating $273 million to meet immediate needs and begin the recovery process. The bill also contains provisions for a recovery fund for Brunswick County and the Carolina Beach area after major flooding during a storm in September, and a similar fund for Rocky Mount to assist with recovery after a tornado caused by Helene damaged buildings and caused injuries. Notable provisions of the bill expand eligibility for serving as a volunteer poll worker and for submitting absentee ballots, and authorize the Governor to waive certain DMV fees, such as duplicate license/identification card fees and late fees for motor vehicle registration renewals. Additionally, the bill temporarily extends the deadline for preliminary hearings for post-release supervision and parole violations once a supervisee has been arrested from seven to twenty-one working days. Governor Roy Cooper signed the bill into law Thursday morning. Read on for more criminal law news.
2024 Updates to the Superior Court Judges’ Benchbook
About a year ago, I wrote to let readers know that several chapters in the criminal law section of the Superior Court Judges’ Benchbook, a resource created and formerly edited by my colleague Jessica Smith, had been updated. I am writing now to let you know that several more have been added to that list. … Read more
Indictment Technicalities: Gone Today and Here Tomorrow
Singleton was supposed to make things simpler. As previously reported, in that case our Supreme Court attempted to eliminate some “obsolete technicalities” of the common law by abrogating the jurisdictional indictment rule, whereby a defective pleading deprives the trial court of jurisdiction. My colleague Danny Spiegel called it a sea change. The Court of Appeals decided two cases in September that illustrate continuing complexity in this area. In State v. Pierce, COA23-348 (N.C. Ct. App. Sept. 3, 2024), the court held the trial court did not lack jurisdiction to accept a pro se defendant’s waiver of indictment, despite a statutory prohibition on such uncounseled waiver. And in State v. Wilkins, COA23-839 (N.C. Ct. App. Sept. 17, 2024), the court found the trial court lacked jurisdiction due to a fatally defective indictment. This post considers those two cases.
The Fourth Circuit Weighs in on THC-O and “Synthetic” THC
In September, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a significant decision affecting the hemp industry on the federal level. There has been an open question for some time regarding the legality of certain cannabinoids that do not naturally occur in the cannabis plant but can be created from hemp products. THC-O (tetrahydrocannabinol acetate) is an example of such a compound. State and federal criminal law both ban “synthetic THC.” What exactly counts as “synthetic” THC? I wrote a bit about this ambiguity in the law before, but Anderson v. Diamondback Investment Group, LLC, ___ F.4th ___; 2024 WL 4031401 (4th Cir. 2024), provides some of the first guidance on the issue in the age of legal hemp. Read on for the details.
What Is Patient Brokering?
The state legislature recently passed a law making patient brokering a felony. If you haven’t heard of patient brokering, well, you’re in the same boat I was in until recently. Read on to learn more.
News Roundup
Our hearts are with our clients and others who have been affected by Hurricane Helene. Expertise among faculty and staff of the School of Government may be valuable to local governments in the aftermath. That expertise list can be accessed here. Additionally, the School has an Emergency Management website available, which lists various state and federal resources for local governments impacted by Hurricane Helene. More on the Chief Justice’s Emergency Order can be found in this blog, posted earlier this week.
Keep reading for your weekly dose of criminal law news.
Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (Oct. 1, 2024)
This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on October 1, 2024. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present.
Navigating Autonomous Vehicle Technology and the Law
In 2017, the General Assembly ratified S.L. 2017-166 regulating “fully autonomous vehicles” on state roadways. Shea wrote about that legislation here, noting “[i]f you expect your car to begin driving you to work later this fall, however, you’ll be disappointed. In this instance, legislation has outpaced the technology it regulates.” Seven years later, what’s changed? Car companies are increasingly marketing and selling vehicles as autonomous, self-driving, or with self-driving features. Autopilot (Tesla), Super Cruise (GM), BlueCruise (Ford), and Drive Pilot (Mercedes) are just a few examples. Has the vehicle industry caught up? And what are the emerging issues now that some of these vehicles are on the road?