Open Carry and Reasonable Suspicion
A decade ago, I wrote a post about the circumstances under which police may stop a person who is carrying a gun openly. A lot has changed since then. The […]
News Roundup
In U.S. Supreme Court news, the Court recently stayed the execution of Richard Glossip. Mr. Glossip has spent 26 years on death row in Oklahoma. This was his ninth scheduled […]
May a Police Department Release its Own Body Worn Camera Footage to the Public?
Suppose that a police officer in a North Carolina city shoots and kills a person in an encounter that began with a traffic stop. There is extensive media coverage of […]
News Roundup
The week began with news that one of the men accused of murder in the death of Wake County Sheriff Deputy Ned Byrd had escaped from a Virginia jail early […]
Case Summaries: N.C. Supreme Court (April 28, 2023) and N.C. Court of Appeals (May 2, 2023)
This post summarizes one published criminal opinion from the Supreme Court of North Carolina released on April 28, 2023, and three published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of […]
The Role of Administrative Traffic Offenses in the North Carolina Criminal Justice System
This post explores the large role that administrative traffic offenses play in the state’s criminal justice system. The Lab’s Measuring Justice Dashboard shows that non-violent misdemeanor charges make up the […]
Is NC’s Disorderly Conduct at Schools Statute Unconstitutionally Vague?
I started wondering about that question after reading a recent decision by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Carolina Youth Action Project v. Wilson, 60 F.4th 770 (4th Cir. 2023) […]
Authenticating Photographs Obtained from Social Media Platforms
In my last post, I wrote about how a party might authenticate a Facebook direct message or other text-based electronic communication. That post focused on how the proponent of the […]
News Roundup
The state legislature continues to be in full swing. While much talk here on campus centers on a bill that would eliminate academic tenure, the criminal justice community is likely […]
How Does the Confrontation Clause Impact the Introduction of a Defendant’s Medical Records in a DWI Trial?
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the foundational requirements for introducing a defendant’s medical records in a DWI trial. Soon after I posted, a reader asked whether introducing those records […]