A UNC School of Government Blog
We’ve seen several significant cases concerning gun laws in the past few years. The two biggest, of course, are District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. ___ (2008), in which the United States Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia’s ban on handgun possession as inconsistent with the Second Amendment, and Britt v. North … Read more
The court of appeals issued a batch of opinions yesterday. Among them is State v. Washburn, a drug dog case. An extremely compressed summary of Washburn is that an informant told the police that the defendant was a drug dealer and kept drugs at his house and at a storage unit. Based on the tip, … Read more
The last round of opinions from the court of appeals included three related to satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders. None of them broke any major new ground, but two more dissents show that nothing is fully settled in this rapidly evolving area. In State v. Gardner, the court found the defendant, who was recently … Read more
Among the most recent batch of opinions issued by the Court of Appeals was State v. Tellez, in which the court upheld the defendant’s conviction of two counts of second-degree murder and one count of felonious hit and run arising from a fatal car crash. Here are the facts: Defendant went to a party in … Read more
You may have noticed that the blog — along with the rest of the School of Government’s website — was down most of the day Friday. I was unable to access it, just like you, so I couldn’t post anything. It seems that the technological glitch has been resolved, so I plan to be back … Read more
As I mentioned last week, I have a new publication entitled Prosecution and Law Enforcement Access to Information about Electronic Communications. It’s meant to be useful on a range of topics, from phone records and wiretapping, but the most detailed discussion concerns email, text messages, and other stored electronic communications. The very, very simplified version … Read more
First off, it’s Veterans’ Day. Thanks to all who have served — including Jamie Markham, who regularly contributes to this blog — and Godspeed to those who are in harm’s way today. In other recent news: 1. Two North Carolina judges have just been nominated to the Fourth Circuit: Jim Wynn, who currently sits on … Read more
Can a municipality adopt an ordinance that criminalizes loitering for the purpose of drug activity? I’ve been asked that question several times, and in fact, a number of North Carolina municipalities have such ordinances. See, e.g., Charlotte Code of Ordinances § 15-23; Hickory Code of Ordinances § 29-22(d). The answer is generally yes, though such … Read more
For the first time since 1995 we have a new felony punishment chart for Structured Sentencing. Two pieces of legislation from the past session, S.L. 2009-555 and S.L. 2009-556, made changes that will become effective December 1, 2009 and apply to offenses committed on or after that date. The first law restructures the point ranges … Read more
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m especially interested in the law regarding electronic communications and electronic evidence. (For one thing, it allows me to look at web sites like Gizmodo and claim that I’m working.) I’ve previously published a paper on law enforcement use of GPS tracking devices, as well as several blog posts about electronic … Read more