Summary of Probation Reform Bill

The General Assembly has passed several interesting pieces of legislation recently, but none are more consequential than S 920, the probation reform bill signed by Governor Perdue last week. I previously expressed my hope that Jamie Markham, our sentencing and corrections expert, would summarize and analyze the bill, and fortunately for all of us, he’s … Read more

New Blog Feature

The fantastic IT folks here at the School of Government have just added a new feature to the blog: email subscription. Subscribers are notified by email of each new post, and the text of the email includes the first few lines of the post, so that you can get a feel for whether it will … Read more

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Double Punishment but No Double Jeopardy

Donna Defendant’s license was revoked on May 1, 2007 upon her conviction of driving after consuming in violation of G.S. 20-13.2. On January 15, 2008, Donna Defendant was charged with impaired driving and driving with a revoked license. Donna Defendant is convicted of both offenses in district court. At the sentencing hearing, the district court … Read more

Do Officers Need More than a Warrant to Search a Computer?

The Ninth Circuit recently decided United States v. Payton, a computer search case that quietly adopts some pretty radical ideas. Based on the lack of comments on my previous computer search posts — here and here –most of you aren’t keenly interested in the application of the Fourth Amendment to emerging technologies, but Payton strikes … Read more

News Roundup

Several recent news stories that may be of interest: 1. Governor Perdue just signed S 920, which makes substantial changes to the probation laws. For example, it requires all probationers to submit to warrantless searches by probation officers, and to a lesser degree, by law enforcement officers. It also clarifies the tolling provisions of the … Read more

Legislative “Fix” for State v. Byrd

Remember State v. Byrd, the case that held that ex parte domestic violence TROs aren’t “protective orders” under Chapter 50B? I blogged about it here, and I highlighted a more detailed summary by John Rubin here. Byrd always seemed like a likely candidate for a legislative “fix,” and in fact, the General Assembly passed, and … Read more

Satellite-Based Monitoring and State v. Kilby

by School of Government faculty member Jamie Markham There are two categories of sex offenders subject to satellite-based monitoring: those subject to lifetime monitoring, and those subject to monitoring for a period of time specified by the court. For an offender to fall within the latter category (called “conditional” monitoring by DCC), the court must … Read more

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Retroactivity of Melendez-Diaz (Again)

In my last post on this topic, I addressed the “new rule” prong of Teague retroactivity analysis as it applies to Melendez-Diaz. I ended that post by noting that another aspect of retroactivity analysis that has been raised regarding Melendez-Diaz is whether the Teague test applies in North Carolina motion for appropriate relief proceedings in … Read more