Blood Draws in DWI Cases (December 2, 2009)
Jeff Welty
Update: Check out this post about a recent court of appeals case in this area. Original post: Most DWI cases involve breath tests for alcohol. But there are circumstances in […]
Probation Officer Liability and the Public Duty Doctrine (December 1, 2009)
Jamie Markham
A recent court of appeals case, Blaylock v. N.C. Department of Correction-Division of Community Corrections, has spurred to write about something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while: […]
Forcible Medication and the Death Penalty (November 30, 2009)
Jeff Welty
Editor’s note: Tom Tynan is an alumnus of Duke University Law School, a recent federal judicial clerk, and a soon-to-be associate at a large law firm. He spent several months […]
Search Warrants for “All Persons on the Premises” (November 25, 2009)
Jeff Welty
I have been asked several times about the validity of search warrants that authorize the police to search a particular place and “all persons on the premises.” It sounds as […]
News Roundup (November 24, 2009)
Jeff Welty
There’s been quite a bit of criminal law news this past week: 1. The controversy over the Bowden case and its interpretation of life sentences continues. Governor Perdue has a […]
Consecutive Sentences for Misdemeanors (November 23, 2009)
Jamie Markham
A while ago, Alyson Grine and I wrote a post about consecutive sentences for misdemeanors. In it, we discussed the rule that when a court elects to impose consecutive sentences […]
District Court is in Session . . . But for How Long? (November 20, 2009)
Alyson Grine
Editor’s note: This post has been revised slightly in response to a helpful comment from a reader. A district court session usually lasts one day, so many court actors have […]
Heller . . . Britt . . . What’s Next for Gun Laws? (November 19, 2009)
Jeff Welty
We’ve seen several significant cases concerning gun laws in the past few years. The two biggest, of course, are District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. ___ (2008), in which […]
Drug Dogs (November 18, 2009)
Jeff Welty
The court of appeals issued a batch of opinions yesterday. Among them is State v. Washburn, a drug dog case. An extremely compressed summary of Washburn is that an informant […]
Another Batch of Satellite-Based Monitoring Cases (November 17, 2009)
Jamie Markham
The last round of opinions from the court of appeals included three related to satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders. None of them broke any major new ground, but two […]