Happy Justice Reinvestment Day
It’s December 1, and a lot of new laws (the News & Observer counts 35) come into effect today. Among them is the Justice Reinvestment Act—or at least portions of […]
Proposed Ethics Opinion: Defense Lawyers May Assist the State in Responding to Claims of Ineffective Assistance
Criminal defendants, especially those sentenced to long prison terms, sometimes try to attack their convictions and sentences by claiming that their trial lawyers provided ineffective assistance of counsel. The state […]
The New G.S. 90-96
Last year, the Onion (my favorite news satire outfit) ran an article headlined “Nation Shudders at Large Block of Uninterrupted Text.” It’s a pretty funny take on modern society’s overreliance […]
Individual Voir Dire
According to the News and Observer, the trial of Laurence Lovette begins today in Hillsborough. Lovette is charged with the first-degree murder of Eve Carson, who was, at the time […]
Consolidated Judgments and DWI
The Structured Sentencing Act permits judges to consolidate convictions for multiple felony offenses entered at the same time or multiple misdemeanor offenses entered in the same session of court and […]
Habitual Breaking and Entering
I wrote recently about how the Justice Reinvestment Act changes North Carolina’s existing habitual felon law (you can read that post here). This post examines a new recidivist offender statute […]
Corpus Delicti
According to my teenaged kids, “corpus delicti” sounds like something that will get you in trouble if you write about it on a government-sponsored blog. It is, however, an issue […]
News Roundup
Last night I attended the annual awards banquet of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section. Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby was presented with the Peter Gilchrist Award, […]
Media Interviews by the Defendant
Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State defensive coordinator accused of sexually abusing multiple young boys, gave a telephone interview to NBC’s Bob Costas. You can hear the interview here. (Those […]
Unanimity and Felony Murder
The jury need not be unanimous regarding the felony underlying a defendant’s conviction of felony murder. State v. Taylor, 362 N.C. 514 (2008) (the defendant was charged with felony murder, […]