Smith v. Arizona and So Many Unanswered Questions
I recently gave a criminal law case update to a group of judges. I had quite a few cases that I planned to cover in relatively short order. I started […]
Case Summaries: Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (August 2024)
This post summarizes published criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during August of 2024. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized […]
Smith v. Arizona and Retroactivity
My colleagues have covered the retroactivity rules many times before on the blog but the analysis for determining the retroactivity of new federal rules has changed in the last few […]
Supreme Court: Bump Stocks Are Legal
The Supreme Court’s big Second Amendment case this term was United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. __ (2024), which I wrote about here. But readers interested in firearms law should […]
Backing Away from Bruen? Supreme Court Upholds Law Barring Restraining Order Subjects from Possessing Guns
On June 21, the Supreme Court decided a highly-anticipated Second Amendment case. In United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. __ (2024), the Court considered a facial challenge to 18 U.S.C. […]
News Roundup
Last week, Louisiana became the first state to allow surgical castration as punishment for sex crimes against children. Effective August 1, the legislation gives Louisiana judges the option to sentence […]
Bruen Comes to North Carolina
My colleague Jeff Welty has covered the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in New York Rife and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), and subsequent lower court cases […]
News Roundup
It sounds like there’s a criminal trial of some kind going on in New York, but the big trial this week here in North Carolina was the retrial of self-proclaimed […]
News Roundup
Police in Boone may have narrowly averted a mass shooting this week. According to WRAL, Peter Gabaree was asked to leave a popular bar in the college town. He went […]
News Roundup
After more than 25 years, an arrest has been made in the killing of the rapper Tupac Shakur, as AP news reports here. “Pac” died in a drive-by shooting in […]