The North Carolina Supreme Court decided Lee v. Gore last Friday, affirming the court of appeals and holding that DMV lacked authority to revoke the petitioner’s driving privileges pursuant to […]
I’ve written about traffic stops at some length, in this paper. One of the areas in which the law is unsettled is the extent to which officers may engage in […]
Every cell on the felony sentencing grid is divided into three ranges of permissible minimum sentences—mitigated, presumptive, and aggravated. Most defendants (69 percent) are sentenced in the presumptive range, about […]
Earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters have been top-of-mind for most North Carolina residents this week. Not for me, though. I have remained focused like a laser beam on tracking […]
[Editor’s note: For a discussion of waivers in the context of probation violation proceedings, see Jamie Markham’s recent post here.] In the last batch of N.C. Court of Appeals’ decisions […]
In addition to enacting the aggravated level one punishment for impaired driving discussed here, the 2011 General Assembly amended the requirements for imposing a Level One impaired driving sentence, effective […]
As I mentioned in a recent post, I really enjoy working with magistrates, in part because of the excellent questions they ask. Here’s one that came up recently: if a […]
In North Carolina a probationer has a statutory right to counsel at a probation violation hearing. G.S. 15A-1345(e); G.S. 7A-451(a)(4). The probationer can also waive the right to assistance of […]
[Editor’s note: I’m on vacation Friday, so I’m posting this roundup Thursday night.] We welcomed a group of new magistrates at the School of Government this week. I like working […]
The court of appeals recently held that a defendant who was initially unarmed, then stole a weapon from a victim, was properly convicted of armed robbery because the defendant was […]