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Several high profile murder trials are headed for a conclusion in the near future. The News and Observer covers the Robert Stewart trial here (the defendant admits killing eight people […]

In a post here, I wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 131 S. Ct. 2705 (2011), holding that substitute analyst testimony in an impaired […]

The North Carolina Supreme Court decided Lee v. Gore last Friday, affirming the court of appeals and holding that DMV lacked authority to revoke the petitioner’s driving privileges pursuant to […]

I’ve written about traffic stops at some length, in this paper. One of the areas in which the law is unsettled is the extent to which officers may engage in […]

Every cell on the felony sentencing grid is divided into three ranges of permissible minimum sentences—mitigated, presumptive, and aggravated. Most defendants (69 percent) are sentenced in the presumptive range, about […]

Earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters have been top-of-mind for most North Carolina residents this week. Not for me, though. I have remained focused like a laser beam on tracking […]

[Editor’s note: For a discussion of waivers in the context of probation violation proceedings, see Jamie Markham’s recent post here.] In the last batch of N.C. Court of Appeals’ decisions […]

In addition to enacting the aggravated level one punishment for impaired driving discussed here, the 2011 General Assembly amended the requirements for imposing a Level One impaired driving sentence, effective […]

As I mentioned in a recent post, I really enjoy working with magistrates, in part because of the excellent questions they ask. Here’s one that came up recently: if a […]

In North Carolina a probationer has a statutory right to counsel at a probation violation hearing. G.S. 15A-1345(e); G.S. 7A-451(a)(4). The probationer can also waive the right to assistance of […]