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CBS 17 reports that members of the Raleigh Fire and Police departments gathered in downtown Raleigh on Tuesday prior to a city council meeting to protest and call for the city to pay them higher wages.  The City Council was set to consider a 2 percent pay increase for city employees, but those gathered at the protest noted that the cost of living in and around Raleigh has risen more than 2 percent in recent years and that wages weren’t competitive relative to other opportunities.  The CBS 17 report says that vacancies at the police department are at an all-time high, with a vacancy rate around 20%.

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the Court of Appeals of North Carolina released on April 19, 2022. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a […]

This post summarizes published criminal and related decisions released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during March 2022. Decisions that may be of interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous Fourth Circuit case summaries are available here.

The Supreme Court of the United States decided a malicious prosecution case earlier this month. The case is Thompson v. Clark, 596 U.S. __ (2022), and it has been the subject of some overheated media reports. For example, one outlet claimed that before Thompson, “[p]olice officers could frame people, file bogus charges, [and] conjure evidence out of thin air” yet “still be immune from facing any sort of civil accountability.” Billy Bunion, The Supreme Court Says You Can Sue Cops Who Frame You on False Charges (April 5, 2022). That’s not right, but Thompson is still an important opinion. This post will lay out the basics of malicious prosecution, explain what the Court did in Thompson, and offer some thoughts about the significance of the new ruling.

This week the United States Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.  Jackson will be the first Black woman to serve on the court when she takes Justice Breyer’s place at the end of the current term, and will be the only current member with experience as a public defender.  Three Republicans joined all Senate democrats to confirm Jackson with a vote of 53 to 47.  Keep reading for more news.

This post summarizes published criminal decisions released by the North Carolina Court of Appeals on April 5, 2022. As always, these cases will be added to the Criminal Case Compendium, here.  

We recently updated our Measuring Justice Dashboard with a new metric on court non-appearance. As with all Dashboard metrics, you can explore the data at the state and county level. Here’s a quick summary of what you’ll see on the Dashboard’s new metric. But if you want to get right to it, click here to access the Dashboard directly.

On Tuesday, President Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law, bipartisan legislation that amends 18 U.SC. § 249 by expressly making lynching a federal hate crime.  A Time article explains that the bill will allow criminal prosecutions in situations where a group of people conspire to commit a hate crime which results in death or serious bodily injury.  The NewsHour aired a lengthy segment this week on the new law and the history of racial violence in the United States.  The bill passed the Senate unanimously and was opposed by only three members of the House of Representatives.  Keep reading for more news.

Today is GiveUNC, the University’s annual day of giving. As Dean Mike Smith is set to step down as Dean at the end of this year, today we are celebrating […]

Author’s Note:  The opinion discussed below was reversed in relevant part by Fearrington v. City of Greenville, ___ N.C. ___, 900 S.E.2d 851 (2024). 

Two men cited in separate instances for failing to stop at red light camera locations in Greenville, NC filed declaratory judgment actions arguing that the city’s red light camera enforcement program violated the state constitution. Among other claims, the men argued that the program violated the Fines and Forfeitures Clause contained in Article IX, Section 7 of the North Carolina Constitution because the local school board received less than the clear proceeds of the civil penalties the city collected for violations. The Court of Appeals in Fearrington v. City of Greenville, 2022 NCCOA 158, __ N.C. App. __ (2022), agreed, holding that the funding framework violated the state constitution.