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Ghost Guns

All the components of my AR15 including my homemade lower receiver the gleaming aluminum piece.Last week, President Biden announced several new executive actions on firearms, including: calling for an updated report on firearms trafficking; nominating a new director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and ordering the Department of Justice to draft new regulations that will treat handguns equipped with pistol braces as short-barreled rifles under the National Firearms Act, along with publishing a model “red flag” law for states to use as a guide. Jeff Welty and Shea Denning have previously written about red flag laws here and here.

One order in particular seems to be getting a lot of attention: instructing the DOJ to issue a proposed rule within 30 days to address “ghost guns.” I’ve gotten a few questions recently from law enforcement officers and prosecutors about ghost guns and the applicable law, so this post provides a summary of three topics: (i) what are ghost guns; (ii) why are they coming up as an issue now; and (iii) what do our existing state and federal laws say about them?

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California Supreme Court Addresses Affordability of Money Bail

Regular readers of this blog know that bail reform has been a hot topic in criminal law.  Jessie has posted about the Criminal Justice Innovation Lab’s ongoing collaborations with several North Carolina jurisdictions in efforts to evaluate and improve bail practices, and she also has noted recent litigation over the constitutionality of the Alamance County bail system.  Late last month, the Supreme Court of California ruled that money bail, when used, must be set at an amount an arrestee can reasonably afford unless there is clear and convincing evidence that no nonfinancial condition of release will reasonably protect victim or public safety or assure the arrestee’s appearance in court.  This post takes a closer look at the opinion – In re Humphrey, No. S247278, 2021 WL 1134487 (Cal. Mar. 25, 2021).

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News Roundup

A United States Capitol Police Officer, William “Billy” F. Evans, died this week after he and another officer seemingly were deliberately hit by a car as it was driven into a barricade at the Capitol Building by a man who then threatened other officers with a knife before being shot and killed.  Evans had served with the Capitol Police since 2003.  News reports have emerged suggesting that the perpetrator, 25-year-old Noah Green who was living in Virginia, had been experiencing increasingly delusional thoughts and declining mental health, perhaps attributable in part to drug abuse.  The Associated Press says that investigators believe the attack was an isolated incident.  Keep reading for more news.

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Supreme Court to Decide Whether Hot Pursuit Applies to Misdemeanors

In 2016, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held in State v. Adams, 250 N.C. App. 664 (2016), that law enforcement officers acted lawfully when, lacking a warrant, they chased a man suspected of driving while license revoked into his home where they arrested him. The court determined that because the officers were engaged in hot pursuit, they did not need to establish additional exigent circumstances such as immediate danger or destruction of evidence to justify forcibly entering the suspect’s home. This year, the United States Supreme Court is reviewing a California case raising the same issue:  Does pursuit of a person who a police officer has probable cause to believe has committed a misdemeanor categorically qualify as an exigent circumstance sufficient to allow the officer to enter a home without a warrant? See Lange v. California, 141 S. Ct. 1617 (2020) (granting review of People v. Lange, No. A157169, 2019 WL 5654385 (Cal. Ct. App. Oct. 30, 2019) (unpublished)).

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News Roundup

The Fayetteville Observer reported this week that an arrest has been made in connection with a road rage shooting last week near Lumberton that killed a Pennsylvania woman traveling with her husband to a beach vacation.  Dejywan R. Floyd has been charged with murder for allegedly shooting into the passenger side of an SUV occupied by Julie and Ryan Eberly after the SUV came close to Floyd’s car during a lane change maneuver on I-95.  Julie Eberly was struck by the gunfire and died.  Keep reading for more news.

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GiveUNC: A Note from Mike Smith, Dean of the School of Government

  For the entirety of its 90 years of existence, the School of Government’s mission has been focused on the people of North Carolina. Through our commitment to offering high-quality education, advising, and support to public officials across the state, we improve the lives of North Carolinians. We firmly believe this work is more critical … Read more