A UNC School of Government Blog
North Carolina has a number of different assault crimes, like simple assault, assault on a female, assault with a deadly weapon, and so on. We also have a confusing body of case law regarding the propriety of multiple assault convictions based on a single course of conduct. For example, can a defendant who assaults his … Read more
North Carolina law prohibits convicted felons from possessing firearms. See G.S. 14-415.1. I’ve had several recurrent questions about this offense, so here’s an FAQ about FIP (felon in possession): 1. Doesn’t North Carolina allow felons to possess long guns? Not anymore. North Carolina’s FIP law used to have lots of exceptions, including exceptions for long … Read more
It has become clear to me in my work with judges and lawyers around the state that use of prayer for judgment continued—a practice virtually unique to North Carolina, at least by that name—varies. The long-running James Johnson case in Wilson concluded last week with a PJC (story here), prompting me to make the first … Read more
This post simply highlights and links to some of the criminal law news that’s broken over the last few days, since there’s been an unusual amount of it. First, the National Academy of Sciences issued an apparently scathing report about the state of the nation’s crime labs. Newspaper story here, full report available for purchase … Read more
The Court of Appeals decided two rape shield cases this month — State v. Cook and State v. Adu — and Cook, in particular, is a good illustration of how protective our courts are of the privacy of alleged victims of sexual assaults. North Carolina’s rape shield law, N.C. R. Evid. 412, prohibits the introduction … Read more
With the growing prison population and the shrinking budget, there’s some talk of changes to North Carolina’s sentencing laws. An article in the paper last week made general reference to sentencing alternatives proposed by the Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission. I thought people might be interested in knowing a little more about the specifics of … Read more
A couple of sessions ago, the General Assembly enacted G.S. 15A-211, which requires that custodial interrogations in homicide cases be recorded. The idea is to “eliminate disputes about interrogations,” id., and particularly, to prevent and record any coercion by law enforcement that might result in a false confession, and to prevent false claims of coercion. … Read more
I am teaching today, so I only have time for a quick post on a subject that crops up from time to time: how can the state compel access to documents it wants or needs to review during a criminal investigation? In the federal system, the grand jury can subpoena documents in its investigative capacity, … Read more
Criminal lawyers are paying more attention to immigration issues in cases where the defendant is not a United States citizen, and that’s a good thing. But my sense is that many lawyers don’t know about a provision of immigration law that applies in certain cases where the victim is not a United States citizen. It’s … Read more
The News and Observer ran a story today about a piece of proposed legislation that would allow any law enforcement officer to search any probationer, for any reason, at any time. The story is here, and the proposed legislation itself is available here. In essence, it would remove G.S. 15A-1343(b1)(7), which gives judges the option … Read more