Probation Violations Arising During a Tolled Period

I recently presented at the North Carolina Probation and Parole Association’s annual conference. I received a lot of really good questions, but the subject that raised the most questions (by far) was tolling probation under G.S. 15A-1344(g). I wrote about it in this post if you care to review the basics. The general concept is … Read more

News Roundup

I’ve been at the beach the past couple of days, teaching at conferences. (It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.) One of the talks I gave was about GPS tracking, so this story about a man who discovered a tracking device on his car and the FBI’s subsequent efforts to retrieve the … Read more

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The Theory of Implied Consent

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the offense of operating while impaired.  One of the issues I raised in the post was whether telling a defendant that his or her refusal to submit to a breath test in such a case was admissible at trial amounted to coercion that rendered the consent involuntary.  A … Read more

The Confidential Spousal Communication Privilege

It is hornbook law that “[a] confidential communication between husband and wife is privileged and neither spouse may be compelled to disclose it when testifying as a witness.” 1 Kenneth S. Broun, Brandis & Broun on North Carolina Evidence 419 (6th ed. 2004). See also G.S. 8-57(c). Just today, the court of  appeals decided a case … Read more

Too Much Confidentiality?

For some time, I’ve been meaning to do a post about attorney-client confidentiality in extreme circumstances. For example, in this Chicago case, defendant X, who was charged with one murder, admitted to his lawyers that he had also committed another murder, one with which defendant Y had been charged. There was other evidence in the … Read more

News Roundup

Locally, the top story of the week is once again the situation at the SBI lab, which has outsourced some of its DNA analysis to a private lab, and which is without an interim director after retired Judge Gerald Arnold decided not to undertake that task despite previous indications that he would do so. But … Read more

Cell Phone Tracking

I’ve had several questions lately about the authority of law enforcement to track a suspect by obtaining information about contacts between the suspect’s cellular telephone and cellular towers. I’m also going to be teaching about some related issues in the near future. So I’ve prepared a short summary of the law in this area, which … Read more

Ninth Circuit DNA Collection Case

As most readers of this blog are aware, S.L. 2010-94 creates a new statute, G.S. 15A-266.3A, which provides for the collection of a DNA sample from anyone arrested for a laundry list of offenses, most but not all of which are felonies, and most but not all of which are violent crimes. Under some circumstances, … Read more

What’s a Vehicle?

James Heselden, the owner of the company that makes the Segway personal transporter, died recently after driving his Segway off a cliff. It appears to have been a tragic accident, and the accounts I’ve read suggest that Heselden was an interesting person and a remarkable philanthropist. Thinking about Segways, though, reminded me that I’ve been … Read more