This post summaries published criminal law decisions released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during January 2023. Cases that may be of interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. […]
The School of Government was founded 92 years ago as the Institute of Government. To say that the School has had continuity of leadership would be an understatement. The top […]
The legislature is in session and a bill to make the Moravian cookie the official state cookie was introduced this week. According to my admittedly casual research, only a few […]
After Andrew Brown, Jr. was shot and killed in Elizabeth City in April 2021 by law enforcement officers who were attempting to serve arrest and search warrants on him, several […]
A non-lawyer might be forgiven for being somewhat confused by the rules governing indictments. The basics are summarized easily enough: a trial court’s jurisdiction depends on a facially valid indictment; […]
Last week, in Part I of this series, I discussed whether having a drug dog sniff a vehicle is a search if the drug dog might alert upon smelling hemp, […]
Attorney General Josh Stein now appears to be highly unlikely to be charged criminally over a campaign ad he ran in the last election cycle. The ad charged that Stein’s […]
This post summarizes the published criminal opinion from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on February 7, 2023. This summary will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a […]
In December, the North Carolina Supreme Court decided State v. Atwell, 2022-NCSC-135, ___ N.C. ___ (2022)—its third time weighing in on the issue of forfeiture of counsel. The defendant had […]
Hemp and hemp products are now legal under state and federal law. Hemp is the same plant as marijuana and contains the same chemical compounds, though in different concentrations. Could […]