North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

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, […]

As most readers of this blog know, many people charged in North Carolina with driving while impaired and other implied consent offenses suffer the immediate consequence of having their driver’s […]

As a general rule, some decisions in the course of a criminal trial are made by the defendant and others are made by defense counsel. A defendant decides, for example, […]

One can describe today in many ways. Perhaps most importantly, it is Veterans Day, a chance to appreciate those who have served in our nation’s armed forces. If you have […]

As part of the Justice Reinvestment project, analysts from the Council of State Governments (CSG) looked at how the habitual felon law is used in North Carolina. In general, the […]

I’ve had several questions about BB guns, pellet guns, and airsoft guns, and whether certain criminal offenses can be predicated on the use or possession of such weapons. I’ll try […]

Former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky has been charged with sexually assaulting eight young boys between 1994 and 2009. The principal New York Times story is here. ESPN’s coverage […]

As blog readers well know, the new Crawford confrontation clause rule provides that absent an exception or a waiver of rights, testimonial hearsay statements of a declarant who does not […]

The legal tabloids spent much of the week focused on Texas judge William Adams, after a video was posted on YouTube of him brutally beating his teenage daughter. I watched  […]

As I mentioned in a prior post, the Justice Reinvestment Act (S.L. 2011-192) creates a new set of “community and intermediate probation conditions” that can be ordered in any Structured […]