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Update: Another statistical analysis of Judge Sotomayor’s work in criminal cases appears here. The conclusion — that she’s pretty close to the middle of the road — is the same […]

Last week the court of appeals decided State v. Swann, concluding (among other things) that a prosecutor’s statement alone is insufficient to support a restitution award. A lot of recent […]

Can a lay witness testify that she could tell just by looking at a substance that it was, in fact, a controlled substance? (Let’s assume the witness has extensive dealings […]

Two big developments at the United States Supreme Court. First, President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter. The New York Times story is here, some News […]

Once in a while, someone requests a post on a particular topic. Today’s post is in response to such a request — which, as I understand it, is not based […]

Editor’s note: Today’s post discusses a recent case about the unique-to-North-Carolina phenomenon of Prayer for Judgment Continued, or PJC. For a terrific earlier post about PJCs — it’s the single […]

The other day I posted my thoughts about the “Jacob Wetterling” provision in G.S. 14-208.12A.  While that provision raises what I think are the most difficult questions related to petitions […]

Two statutes enacted as part of the Motor Vehicle Driver Protection Act of 2006, G.S. 20-38.6 and 20-38.7, significantly altered district court procedures for implied consent offenses committed on or […]

by School of Government faculty members Jamie Markham and Shea Denning The folks at DOC combined records tell us they see a lot of habitual impaired driving judgments that look […]

Although I have a couple of more scholarly posts ready to go, there have been enough intriguing news stories over the past several days that I couldn’t resist doing another […]