Jessie’s Top Five Indictment Errors
An indictment defect is a boon for the defense and a disaster for the prosecution. Simply put an indictment is defective when it fails to allege an essential element of […]
Update on New G.S. 20-13.3: Civil License Revocations for Provisional Licensees
Want to frighten your 16 or 17-year-old this Halloween? Tell her that if she is charged with speeding more than 15 mph over the speed limit, she’ll be arrested and […]
Forfeiture of the Right to Counsel
In response to my recent post (here) about waivers of counsel, a number of you emailed asking me to write about forfeiture of the right to counsel. Your wish is […]
News Roundup
Perhaps the biggest criminal law story here in North Carolina this week was the appointment of former court of appeals judge Joe John as the director of the State Crime […]
N.C. App. Holds that Maryland v. Craig Survives Crawford
In a case decided earlier this month, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that Maryland v. Craig, which allows certain child abuse victims to testify by way of closed-circuit […]
Community Punishment and Intermediate Punishment
Under Structured Sentencing, there are two types of non-active sentences: community punishment and intermediate punishment. Intermediate punishment is supervised probation plus at least one of six specific conditions of probation […]
Trespass vs. Ejectment
Suppose that Bob Boyfriend moves in with Gina Girlfriend. Bob lives in Gina’s apartment for several months. He isn’t on the lease and doesn’t pay rent, but he does buy […]
Cyberstalking
Furious that her ex-boyfriend slept with her best friend, defendant puts up a post on Facebook falsely stating that boyfriend enjoys intimate relations with inbred dogs (actually, the phrase “enjoys […]
News Roundup
A lot of attention was focused on Cupertino, California this week as Apple introduced a new iPhone and company founder Steve Jobs died. There’s a gossamer connection to the blog, […]
Is a Burned Out Brake Light a Basis for a Stop?
We’ll start with a pop quiz: A police officer sees that the right brake light of a vehicle fails to illuminate when the driver applies brakes while driving down a […]