A UNC School of Government Blog
Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court decided United States v. Jones, the important GPS tracking case I previously blogged about here. (The case was captioned United States v. Maynard at that time.) In brief, Washington, DC officers suspected that the defendant was a drug dealer. They wanted to track his movements, so they obtained a … Read more
Now that Christmas is over, Santa’s cases are coming on for trial. He’s accused of multiple counts of burglary. We already know the facts: He entered dwellings at night, using the chimney to gain entry, while the residents slept soundly in bed. The indictments charge that once inside, he stole milk and cookies. Being a … Read more
Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. To commemorate the occasion, National Public Radio’s Fresh Air broadcast this interview with Ohio State University law professor Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Alexander argues that the mass incarceration of African-Americans in the war on drugs strips such … Read more
In the last in this series of posts on pretrial release I’ll address two issues that continue to create problems for judicial officials: defendants who refuse to identify themselves and setting conditions for noncitizens. Defendants Who Refuse to Identify Themselves Sometimes defendants refuse to identify themselves. Without knowing a defendant’s identity, it is almost impossible … Read more
Some criminal defendants just want to serve their time. There a variety of reasons for that. Sometimes they are facing active time for another conviction and hope the new sentence can be served concurrently. Sometimes it’s a money issue. And some defendants simply find life under community supervision to be difficult. Probation can be hard, … Read more
In a post here, I listed my top five indictment errors. The number one error was misstating the victim’s name in an indictment charging larceny or a related crime interfering with the right of possession. In that context the problem typically involves failing to allege the victim as a natural person or an entity capable … Read more
There was some serious legal news this week, like the issuance of the Supreme Court’s recent Brady decision, Smith v. Cain, and the Court’s decision to grant certiorari in the dog-sniffs-a-house case I mentioned last week, Florida v. Jardines. The fact that homicide is no longer one of the top 15 causes of death in … Read more
It’s been a while since I wrote anything about satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders. A recent case from the court of appeals provides a nice opportunity for an update. The case, State v. Sprouse, dealt with (among other issues) the heavily-litigated question of what constitutes an “aggravated offense” for purposes of the SBM law. … Read more
Part I of this post ended by noting that, like the racing forfeiture provisions in G.S. 20-141.3—and unlike the DWI seizure and forfeiture laws—the new felony speeding to elude seizure and forfeiture provisions in G.S. 20-141.5 fail to specify that payment of towing and storage costs is required to obtain the release of a motor … Read more
My nomination for catchiest short title of the 2011 legislative session goes to House Bill 427, enrolled and chaptered as S.L. 2011-271, and short-titled “Run and You’re Done.” The aptly captioned act provides for seizure and forfeiture of motor vehicles driven on or after December 1, 2011 in the commission of felony speeding to elude, … Read more