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About a year ago, I wrote to let readers know that several chapters in the criminal law section of the Superior Court Judges’ Benchbook, a resource created and formerly edited […]
Singleton was supposed to make things simpler. As previously reported, in that case our Supreme Court attempted to eliminate some “obsolete technicalities” of the common law by abrogating the jurisdictional indictment rule, whereby a defective pleading deprives the trial court of jurisdiction. My colleague Danny Spiegel called it a sea change. The Court of Appeals decided two cases in September that illustrate continuing complexity in this area. In State v. Pierce, COA23-348 (N.C. Ct. App. Sept. 3, 2024), the court held the trial court did not lack jurisdiction to accept a pro se defendant’s waiver of indictment, despite a statutory prohibition on such uncounseled waiver. And in State v. Wilkins, COA23-839 (N.C. Ct. App. Sept. 17, 2024), the court found the trial court lacked jurisdiction due to a fatally defective indictment. This post considers those two cases.
In September, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a significant decision affecting the hemp industry on the federal level. There has been an open question for some time regarding the legality of certain cannabinoids that do not naturally occur in the cannabis plant but can be created from hemp products. THC-O (tetrahydrocannabinol acetate) is an example of such a compound. State and federal criminal law both ban “synthetic THC.” What exactly counts as “synthetic” THC? I wrote a bit about this ambiguity in the law before, but Anderson v. Diamondback Investment Group, LLC, ___ F.4th ___; 2024 WL 4031401 (4th Cir. 2024), provides some of the first guidance on the issue in the age of legal hemp. Read on for the details.
The state legislature recently passed a law making patient brokering a felony. If you haven’t heard of patient brokering, well, you’re in the same boat I was in until recently. Read on to learn more.
Our hearts are with our clients and others who have been affected by Hurricane Helene. Expertise among faculty and staff of the School of Government may be valuable to local governments in the aftermath. That expertise list can be accessed here. Additionally, the School has an Emergency Management website available, which lists various state and federal resources for local governments impacted by Hurricane Helene. More on the Chief Justice’s Emergency Order can be found in this blog, posted earlier this week.
Keep reading for your weekly dose of criminal law news.
This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on October 1, 2024. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present.
In 2017, the General Assembly ratified S.L. 2017-166 regulating “fully autonomous vehicles” on state roadways. Shea wrote about that legislation here, noting “[i]f you expect your car to begin driving you to work later this fall, however, you’ll be disappointed. In this instance, legislation has outpaced the technology it regulates.” Seven years later, what’s changed? Car companies are increasingly marketing and selling vehicles as autonomous, self-driving, or with self-driving features. Autopilot (Tesla), Super Cruise (GM), BlueCruise (Ford), and Drive Pilot (Mercedes) are just a few examples. Has the vehicle industry caught up? And what are the emerging issues now that some of these vehicles are on the road?
I recently taught a session at the magistrates’ conference about arrestable conditions of pretrial release. The session sparked a lot of discussion about the law surrounding pretrial conditions for in-custody defendants. It is well understood that when a defendant violates pretrial release conditions after being released from custody, the law allows several mechanisms for enforcement, including revocation of pretrial release, arrest of the defendant, and the setting of new, potentially stricter conditions of pretrial release. What’s less clear is (1) whether or not conditions of release are enforceable if a defendant has not yet been released, and (2) if they are, what tools judicial officials have for enforcement. This post addresses these questions.
There is no way to avoid hearing and seeing the devastating news about Western North Carolina. People have died; lost their loved ones; lost their homes; and have no power, […]
The State of Missouri put Marcellus Williams to death Tuesday, despite opposition from St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell and the victim’s family, the Associated Press reports. Williams was convicted of the murder of Lisha Gayle in 1998. Gayle was stabbed to death during a home burglary in which her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen. The case received international attention due to concerns that Williams may have been innocent. According to The Innocence Project, the case against Williams depended heavily on two witnesses with legal and financial motives rendering their testimony unreliable. Questions were also raised relating to the forensic evidence in the case. The murder weapon appeared to be improperly handled by a staff member from the prosecutor’s office and there was a lack of physical evidence linking Williams to the crime scene.
In 2017, former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens paused Williams’ execution and appointed a board to investigate further. However, current Governor Mike Parson disbanded the board before it issued a final report. Just last month, a new plea deal was accepted by a judge between the Prosecuting Attorney and Williams vacating the death sentence and imposing life without the possibility of parole. However, the State Attorney General, Andrew Bailey, intervened, objecting to the plea and sending the controversy to the State Supreme Court. The State Supreme Court set aside the deal and ordered an evidentiary hearing. Williams raised issues pertaining to bias in jury selection and mishandling of the evidence at the hearing but was ultimately unsuccessful. In declining to delay the execution, Governor Parson stressed that no jury nor court at the trial or appellate level had found merit in Williams’ claims to innocence. Though three Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court voted to halt the execution, the Court denied the emergency request.
Outside of Missouri, four other states scheduled executions within the span of a week, an uncommonly high number, as the number of executions per year is trending down nationwide.
Read on for more criminal law news.