A UNC School of Government Blog
An article in last Saturday’s paper talked about Governor Perdue’s proposed changes to the probation system. Part of her plan would give probation officers access to probationers’ juvenile records, which reminded me of a related issue I have been meaning to write about: using juvenile adjudications as an aggravating factor at sentencing. Under G.S. 15A-1340.16(d)(18a), … Read more
The Sixth Circuit, sitting en banc, recently decided a very interesting Miranda case. Garner v. Mitchell, available here, is a capital case. The defendant stole a woman’s purse, took a taxi to her house, robbed it, and set it on fire to conceal his fingerprints, killing five of the six children who were sleeping in … Read more
Over the past few months I’ve been getting some really interesting questions about contempt. Disclaimer: The real experts on our faculty when it comes to contempt are John Saxon, Michael Crowell, and Cheryl Howell—I’m just dabbling here. But there’s a connection to my field (sentencing), in that many of the questions I’m getting relate to … Read more
There’s lots of news these days about the Bernie Madoff case. Apparently, he’s going to plead guilty today, without a plea agreement, exposing himself to a virtually certain life sentence. I wonder why he’s doing that. An interesting article, available here, tries to figure out the angle, but comes up empty. Could he have suddenly … Read more
According to a News and Observer story available here, MySpace has provided the Attorney General’s office with a list of 2,116 registered North Carolina sex offenders who were on MySpace. (You can read more about this in the AG’s press release, here.) The SBI has shared the list with all 100 sheriffs, and the SBI’s … Read more
The News and Observer ran a story recently — available here — about the length of time it takes to resolve murder cases in North Carolina. The average time to disposition was 528 days last year. That figure includes cases resolved by plea or dismissal, suggesting that the average time to trial is probably longer. … Read more
I’m more interested than the average person in the intersection between criminal law and emerging technologies. Several blog-worthy stories in that area have developed over the last few days. First, it looks like more states are considering legislation to keep sex offenders off social networking sites. I wrote about North Carolina’s law here, and you … Read more
The United States Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in the Osborne case, an Alaska case that asks whether a criminal defendant who claims that he has been wrongfully convicted has a constitutional right to postconviction DNA testing of biological evidence. The transcript of the oral argument is available here, and a news story that … Read more
I posted yesterday about one of the recent Court of Appeals decisions. At the risk of going back to the well, I want to highlight another of those cases today. (I’ve got something else in mind for tomorrow.) In State v. Revels, available here, the defendant was convicted of second-degree murder. She appealed, claiming that … Read more
Further Update: The court has reissued an opinion in this case. On the issue discussed below, it is very similar — at a minimum — to the original opinion. Update: As of April 1, 2009, the Court of Appeals has withdrawn this opinion. I’ll post again when the new opinion comes out. The Court of … Read more