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The murder rate in North Carolina is falling. The same is true nationally. A recent article suggests that shootings are actually up, but deaths are down due to medical advances. […]

Is the parking lot of a private social club a public vehicular area for purposes of North Carolina’s impaired driving laws? Yes, in most circumstances, it is. Public vehicular areas […]

The recent case, State v. Ryan, presents an issue that keeps our appellate courts busy: the proper scope of expert testimony in child sexual abuse cases. In Ryan, after the […]

Hot sauce, simulated sex, and echoes of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison are allegedly involved in one of this week’s most disturbing stories. Yahoo! News reports here that six inmates […]

“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 […]