The Electronic Sweepstakes Ban
According to the News and Observer, Governor Perdue has signed House Bill 80, entitled “An Act to Ban the Use of Electronic Machines and Devices for Sweepstakes Purposes.” It becomes […]
Court of Appeals Holds that Harbison Survives Nixon
In State v. Harbison, 315 N.C. 175 (1985), the North Carolina Supreme Court held that when defense counsel admits the defendant’s guilt to the jury without the defendant’s consent per […]
Sex Offender Treatment as a Condition of Probation
Two of the topics I write about the most are probation and sex offenders. Today’s post is about both, answering a question that—somewhat to my surprise—comes up pretty frequently: Can […]
News Roundup
There have been several interesting stories since the last news roundup, which was two weeks ago. 1. The General Assembly adjourned the short session when it finished the budget. The […]
North Carolina Supreme Court Enters Temporary Stays in Two Substitute Analyst Cases
Previously, Jeff and I posted about the post-Melendez-Diaz decisions by the N.C. Court of Appeals in the Brennan and Brewington substitute analyst cases (those posts are available here, here, and […]
Are Terry Stops “Custodial” for Miranda Purposes?
I used to answer this question “no.” But even though the United States Supreme Court recently said exactly that, see Maryland v. Shatzer, __ U.S. __, 130 S. Ct. 1213 […]
Failure to Request a Jury Instruction on Informants
I was catching up on the Fourth Circuit’s recent opinions this weekend when I came across United States v. Luck. It raises some interesting issues that are not specific to […]
District Court Calendaring Authority
I regularly am asked questions about criminal case calendaring. There are relatively detailed statutory provisions regarding the calendaring of superior court cases. As to district court cases, however, the statutes […]
Restitution for Drug-Buy Money
Back in March I wrote a post on restitution to government agencies, setting out the general rule in G.S. 15A-1340.37(c) that “[n]o government agency shall benefit by way of restitution except for […]
Are the Effects of a Prescription Drug the Proper Subject of Judicial Notice?
Suppose that David Defendant is charged with driving while impaired based upon an incident on in which he drove his car off the road and crashed into a tree. The […]