Fifteen years ago, the General Assembly enacted S.L. 1997-16, implementing graduated driver’s licenses requirements for people under the age of 18, who are termed provisional licensees. Pursuant to G.S. 20-11, […]
The court of appeals issued opinions today. I haven’t looked at all of them, but State v. Best jumped out at me because it provides an authoritative answer to a […]
One of the goals of the Justice Reinvestment Act is to have more misdemeanants serve their time in the county jail instead of the Department of Correction. I’ll write soon […]
The grim recent news out of Norway has spawned interesting commentary this week. The New York Times summarizes the basic facts: “at least 76 people were killed in the bombing […]
Shea Denning summarized S.L. 2011-191, Laura’s Law, in a prior post. To recap, the law adds a new punishment level for impaired driving sentencing, Aggravated Level One (hereinafter Level A1), […]
A recent question prompted me to research when a superior court judge should instruct the jury on a lesser included offense. The general standard is that a judge should do […]
Crime against nature is usually an “add on” to other charged sexual assaults, such as forcible or statutory sexual offense and indecent liberties with a child. In this post, I’ll […]
G.S. 14-415.1 makes it unlawful for “any person who has been convicted of a felony to . . . possess . . . any firearm,” with limited exceptions. In State […]
Although the furor about the Casey Anthony trial has generally died down, I am going back to the well one more time, because of this New York Times story. Briefly, […]
I mentioned in my previous post that the Justice Reinvestment Act (JRA) is not the only new legislation that impacts post-release supervision (PRS). This post looks at S.L. 2011-307, which […]