The Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled that cell phones generally cannot be searched without a warrant incident to arrest. That court’s decision is here. The law in North Carolina appears […]
The principal probation reform bill (S.L. 2009-372 [S 920], summarized here) went into effect on December 1. Since then, I’ve received a number of questions about it, many of them […]
I’ve had several questions recently about how to handle cases in which the defendant was charged with DWI, failed to appear, remained absent for several years, then reappeared. Often, the […]
The top story in the papers today is the continuing fallout from the Bowden case, some background on which is available here. The News and Observer reports that Superior Court […]
Our murder statute, G.S. 14-17, defines first-degree murder, then proceeds as follows: “All other kinds of murder, including that which shall be proximately caused by the unlawful distribution of opium […]
A divided court of appeals decided another significant gun case this week. But before I talk about the opinion in State v. Whitaker, I’ll briefly summarize the legal backdrop for […]
The court of appeals ruled this week in State v. Shockley that alcohol concentration readings from two of four attempted breath samples collected within 18 minutes of one another met […]
I have noted in numerous prior posts (most recently, here) that the statutes governing satellite-based monitoring (SBM) determination hearings (G.S. 14-208.40A and -208.40B) are unclear as to whether the court […]
When one side or the other questions a defendant’s capacity to proceed, the judge may order a competency evaluation. The evaluation is often done locally on an outpatient basis, but […]
Lots of interesting developments in the news recently. The Tar Heels won another women’s soccer national championship, and the United States finally got a favorable draw for the World Cup. […]