A UNC School of Government Blog
[Editor’s note: This is Bob’s first post. We’re excited to welcome him to the blog.] With the Governor’s signature on March 18, 2011, House Bill 3 became law (Session Law 2011-6), effective for all hearings or trials beginning on or after July 1, 2011. It contains two provisions concerning the good faith exception to the … Read more
The biggest news of the last few days, of course, is that Kyrie Irving is expected to return to the court when Duke plays Hampton this afternoon. (OK, the biggest news has been from Libya and Japan, but Kyrie Irving is a close third!) In terms of criminal law news, there have also been several … Read more
Under G.S. 15A-1345(e), a probationer is entitled at a probation violation hearing to “confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses unless the court finds good cause for not allowing confrontation.” What does that statute mean by confrontation? The statute’s language comes directly from a 1973 case called Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778 (1973), in which the … Read more
The Fourth Circuit recently decided a very interesting case with a lot of North Carolina connections. The case is United States v. Foster, and it’s available here. The facts were as follows. A police officer in Henderson, North Carolina was eating lunch at a restaurant with his wife. As he left the restaurant, he saw … Read more
Suppose that the state wants to introduce the defendant’s phone records, in order to show that he called the victim in violation of a DVPO. The state subpoenas the records, and the phone company provides them, along with an affidavit from an appropriate employee stating that they are business records. Armed with the records and … Read more
I wrote here about the court of appeals’ decision in State v. Davis, __ N.C. App. __, 702 S.E.2d 507 (2010), granting the defendant a new trial on second degree murder, impaired driving and other charges arising from a fatal hit-and-run committed by the defendant after she had been drinking. Davis determined that expert testimony … Read more
Nationally, the biggest piece of criminal law news this week was that Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a bill that repeals the death penalty in Illinois. He also commuted the sentences of the fifteen men on death row to life in prison. (All had been sentenced to death since 2000, when then-Governor George … Read more
The News & Observer ran an article last weekend about some of the restrictions on where sex offenders are allowed to live or go. One of the laws mentioned was G.S. 14-208.18(a)(2), which makes it a Class H felony for certain registered sex offenders to “knowingly be . . . [w]ithin 300 feet of any … Read more
I was reading the News and Observer this morning over breakfast and saw this story about jury selection in a Wake County murder case. The thrust of the story will not surprise anyone who has ever tried a lengthy case: At a time when many families are feeling pinched by the recession, prosecutors and defense … Read more
At a recent CLE, Charlotte defense attorney Chris Fialko mentioned that he’s been enjoying Atul Gawande’s book The Checklist Manifesto. Chris is a pretty sharp guy, and I had a plane trip coming up, so I bought the book and read it. I liked it too, and thought it had a few lessons for criminal … Read more