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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
If a 0.15 alcohol concentration is not admitted at trial or sentencing, does it count for limited privilege purposes? I discussed in an earlier post circumstances in which the Confrontation […]
I’ve received questions from both prosecutors and defense lawyers about whether and how the state can obtain a suspect’s — or a defendant’s — medical records when those records may […]
By special request, this post recaps the law of nonstatutory aggravating factors. Under G.S. 15A-1340.16(d), the State may, in addition to the 25 statutory aggravating factors set out in that […]
Although the General Assembly has finally wrapped up for the year, there’s still been a fair bit of news lately that may be of interest to readers of this blog. […]
The longest opinion issued by the court of appeals this week was Judge Ervin’s 45-page treatise in State v. Ward, __ N.C. App. __ (2009). Although the opinion contains other […]
The court of appeals decided State v. Cole, __ N.C. App. __ (2009), yesterday. Simplifying the facts a bit, the two defendants planned to rob two victims, and, brandishing firearms, […]