Recent blog posts - 95 of 395

North Carolina’s law governing the disclosure and release of body-worn camera footage took center stage last spring following the shooting of Andrew Brown in Elizabeth City. John Rubin wrote here about litigation on that issue, noting that one prominent feature of the statutory scheme was that determining matters of disclosure and release “takes time.” This session, the General Assembly amended the rules governing disclosure of recordings that depict death or serious bodily injury to require (1) that a court determine whether a recording be disclosed; and (2) that the court make such a determination within seven business days of the filing of a disclosure petition. This post will review those changes.

This post summarizes published criminal and related decisions from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals released during August 2021 that may be of interest to state practitioners. Previous Fourth Circuit summaries are available on the SOG website here. Summaries are also emailed to subscribers of the SOG criminal law listserv.

Chapel Hill police announced yesterday afternoon that Miguel Enrique Salguero-Olivares was arrested on Thursday morning and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Faith Hedgepeth, a UNC student who was killed in September 2012 in her off-campus apartment.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news.

We recently invited North Carolina jurisdictions to apply to participate in the NC Court Appearance Project. The project is supported by the UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab and The Pew Charitable Trusts. We’re excited to announce our three project sites: New Hanover, Orange, and Robeson Counties. We will be supporting stakeholders in these jurisdictions as they examine the scope and impact of missed court dates and explore ways to improve court appearance rates and responses to missed court dates. Each site has a project team composed of local judges, the DA, the Public Defender or a defense representative, the sheriff, the clerk of court and other officials. Because we’re interested to help stakeholders explore solutions that can work across diverse jurisdictions, we’re happy to have participation from an urban county, a suburban county, and a rural county. Thanks to everyone that applied—we wish we could have included all of you!

Cannabis news abounds: Virginia legalized recreational marijuana for adults 21 and up this year; our General Assembly has been considering a medicinal marijuana bill (S.B. 711); the Court of Appeals recently acknowledged (but did not decide) that precedent on the odor of marijuana as probable cause and on visual identification of the substance “may need to be re-examined” in light of legal hemp. State v. Parker, ___ N.C. App. ___, 860 S.E.2d 21, 29 (2021) (more on those issues here). I will write about the still-evolving issues with marijuana prosecutions in the state again soon. Today, though, I want to focus delta-8 THC. What is it? Is it legal? If so, how? Turns out the first question is simpler than the rest.

The North Carolina Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice recommended in a 2020 report that state and local law enforcement agencies enact policies requiring officers to intervene in and report about circumstances in which a law enforcement officer witnesses excessive use of force or abuse of a suspect or arrestee. The North Carolina Sheriff’s Association similarly recommended in a 2020 report that all law enforcement agencies and the North Carolina Law Enforcement Accreditation Program adopt a policy requiring an officer to intervene when necessary to prevent another officer from using excessive force and to report any such intervention. This session, the General Assembly imposed such duties as a matter of state law rather than agency policy. This post will discuss current statutory law governing officer’s use of force and recent amendments enacted by S.L. 2021-137 (H 536) and S.L. 2021-138 (S 300).

WLOS reports that Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams announced yesterday that his office will not initiate criminal charges in the death of Jacob Biddix, who died at Mission Hospital after being transported there when he was found in distress in his cell at the Buncombe County Detention Center.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news.

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on September 7, 2021. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.

On September 2, 2021, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed Session Law 2021-138 (S300) into law. The law makes wide ranging changes to the state’s criminal law and procedure, including adjustments to satellite-based monitoring based on Grady v. North Carolina, limitations on the enactment of local ordinance crimes, and revised standards for the hiring, certification, and decertification of law enforcement officers. The law has various effective dates, depending on the particular provision. This post will concentrate on changes to first appearance requirements. My colleagues will address other aspects of the changes made by this law in future blog posts.

Each year the School of Government summarizes legislation enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly affecting criminal law and procedure and motor vehicle laws. We also explore selected legislation in more depth on this blog. Most criminal law legislation has an effective date of December 1 to allow the courts to prepare for the changes. What follows is a brief summary of the criminal law and related legislation with earlier effective dates enacted thus far during the 2021 legislative session. It isn’t everything the legislature has done, and by no means is it everything you need to know.