North Carolina Supreme Court on Searching Cell Phones
I’m still not done with the last round of court of appeals and North Carolina Supreme Court opinions, but I found a little gem in one of the high court’s […]
Melendez-Diaz “Fix”
Melendez-Diaz v. Massachussetts, as most readers of this blog know, is the United States Supreme Court’s latest pronouncement on the Confrontation Clause. Generally, it holds that forensic laboratory reports — […]
State v. Wagoner, Satellite-Based Monitoring, and the Ex Post Facto Issue Revisited
Last week the court of appeals decided State v. Wagoner, its latest case involving satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders. Mr. Wagoner, who had previously been convicted of multiple reportable […]
Better than Lexis?
I am constantly amazed at the innovative work my colleagues are doing. A new and incredibly useful tool — but one that is not widely known — is Jessie Smith’s […]
News Roundup (Actual Innocence Edition)
Although there’s been a ton of relevant news since the last News Roundup, the most timely and interesting stories all relate to claims of actual innocence. To start with, Joseph […]
Nonstatutory Mitigating Factors
After my earlier post about nonstatutory aggravating factors, a reader took me up on my offer to write about nonstatutory mitigating factors. In addition to the twenty mitigating factors spelled […]
State v. Locklear and the Admissibility of Forensic Reports
Last Friday, the North Carolina Supreme Court decided State v. Locklear, holding, in part, that a Crawford violation occurred when the trial court admitted opinion testimony regarding a victim’s cause […]
Britt, Heller, and the Right to Bear Arms
The state supreme court issued a batch of opinions last Friday, and while several of them are notable, the one that has received the most attention is Britt v. North […]
Human Lie Detectors
Our court system assumes that people can tell whether other people are telling the truth by evaluating the demeanor of the other people. This is true in a wide range […]
Possession of Stolen Goods and Receiving Stolen Goods
I’m working on revising Arrest Warrant and Indictment Forms, a manual that provides charging language for several hundred common offenses. In the course of working on language for possession of […]