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Under the new Crawford confrontation clause test, testimonial hearsay statements by declarants who do not testify at trial may not be admitted unless the declarant is unavailable and there has […]
A caller recently asked me whether it is a crime to use gang signs. First, some background. According to one gang expert, “each gang has their own gang hand signs […]
A couple of months ago, the court of appeals decided State v. McDowell, __ N.C. App. __, 715 S.E.2d 602 (2011). The defendant was convicted of first-degree murder notwithstanding his […]
Charlotte’s got banking, Asheville’s got mountains, and Eastern North Carolina has the beach, but right now, the Triangle has criminal justice stories in spades. In Orange County, the taking of […]
The North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission recently posted online the new felony sentencing grid effective for offenses committed on or after December 1, 2011. The chart is available […]
Suppose a person who speaks only Spanish is stopped on suspicion of impaired driving by two officers, Officer A and Officer B. Officer A speaks and understands only English. Officer […]
In connection with some teaching that I have coming up, I’ve prepared a short outline summarizing the law of interrogation. It’s available as a PDF here. It covers voluntariness, Miranda, […]
At the start of the fall semester, the Daily Tar Heel reported that Chapel Hill and Carrboro police officers have combined forces with UNC campus police in an effort to […]
I didn’t round up the news last week because of the Thanksgiving holiday, so I’m awash in interesting stories today. Perhaps the biggest story is that the General Assembly has […]
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 […]