News Roundup
The most prominent legal story this week has nothing to do with criminal law. The Supreme Court spent three days hearing oral argument on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health […]
Credit for Inpatient Treatment in Impaired Driving Cases
One of the purposes for sentencing for impaired driving, like sentencing generally, is to rehabilitate offenders so that they may be restored to the community as lawful citizens. Cf. G.S. […]
Two Thoughts about the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman Case
George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida, recently shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old who was walking through Zimmerman’s neighborhood. Martin was returning from a […]
Overstating Possible Punishment and the (In)voluntary Nature of the Plea
In a post here discussing application of post-release supervision periods to multiple sentences Jamie raised the question of whether over-advising a defendant as to the maximum possible sentence associated with […]
Ineffective Assistance and Plea Bargaining
The Supreme Court decided two cases last week about ineffective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining. The cases, Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye, made a big splash in […]
News Roundup
The biggest legal news of the week may be the Supreme Court’s recognition of a right to the effective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining in Lafler v. Cooper and […]
State v. Friend: Dismissal and Re-filing of DWI Charges Did Not Violate Defendant’s Constitutional Rights
Jeff wrote here about State v. Fields, ___ N.C. App. ___ (March 6, 2012), a case in which the officer’s observation of the defendant’s vehicle as moving within its lane […]
New Edition of North Carolina Crimes Now Available
Jessie Smith has completely revised and updated the indispensable reference work North Carolina Crimes. The seventh edition is now available for purchase from the School of Government. The book has […]
Court OKs Offensive Collateral Estoppel
In my experience, the mere mention of the terms “res judicata” and “collateral estoppel” in the classroom setting operates like a blast of intellectual air conditioning, causing mental processes to […]
What’s Going on with the Prison Population?
According to the Division of Adult Correction’s (DAC) website, there are about 38,900 people in prison in North Carolina today. That number actually overstates the real population slightly, because it […]