A UNC School of Government Blog
The biggest news of the past week was, of course, the election. Results for judicial and district attorney races are available here from the State Board of elections. (You have to scroll through some other races to get to them.) The balance of the appellate courts doesn’t look like it’s going to change dramatically, but … Read more
Dan Defendant is charged with and arrested for driving while impaired. He is taken to a law enforcement center for administration of a chemical analysis. At 2:00 a.m., the chemical analyst informs Dan of his implied consent rights, as set forth in G.S. 20-16.2. Dan indicates that he wishes to call a witness. Dan calls … Read more
Normally, a law enforcement officer will attempt to develop reasonable suspicion before instructing a person to stop. But what if the officer does not have reasonable suspicion at that point, yet develops reasonable suspicion prior to the suspect’s compliance with the officer’s instruction? For example, suppose that an officer sees a vehicle weaving within its … Read more
I blogged here about In re J.D.B., a juvenile case in which the North Carolina Supreme Court held that a 13-year-old, questioned in an unlocked school conference room by police officers and an assistant principal about the student’s role in several residential break-ins, was not in custody for Miranda purposes. The court stated that “[f]or … Read more
One of the most frequently litigated issues in North Carolina drug cases is constructive possession. Jeff wrote about one case (here) over a year ago. My research shows no less than eleven published cases in the last two years (click here for a full case listing in my online Criminal Case compendium), including one earlier … Read more
In a previous news roundup, I posted an item about how to write like Chief Justice Roberts. But sometimes a negative example can be as useful as a positive one. In that connection, check out this petition for rehearing filed in the Ninth Circuit. Referring to the panel as a bunch of “slime ball, piece … Read more
If you signed up to receive email notifications of new posts — which you can do in the right-hand column on the front page of the blog — you may have noticed an interruption in service recently. I apologize for that. We had a technical glitch of some kind that removed all our subscribers. Thanks … Read more
One of the clipping services to which I subscribe recently highlighted People v. Assad, __ Cal.Rptr.3d __, 2010 WL 4035491 (Cal. Ct. App. 3 Dist. Oct. 15, 2010). The defendant in Assad was a Syrian man. He tied his twelve-year-old son to his bed and beat him repeatedly and severely with a hose and wooden … Read more
by School of Government faculty member Jamie Markham In an earlier post I wrote about the satellite-based monitoring (SBM) effective-date question resolved by the court of appeals in State v. Cowan. To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, let me sum up: August 16, 2006 is the effective date that matters for SBM. Today, I want to come … Read more
When I first came to the School of Government, I picked a few small areas of law in which I hoped to develop some expertise. One of those areas was the then-new Eyewitness Identification Reform Act. It was enacted in 2007, effective for crimes committed on or after March 1, 2008. S.L. 2007-421. It’s codified … Read more