November 20, 2025
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Article 1, Section 26 of the North Carolina Constitution prohibit the exercise of peremptory challenges to strike prospective jurors based on their race. […]
October 22, 2025
This post summarizes the published criminal opinions released by the Supreme Court of North Carolina on October 17, 2025.
September 12, 2023
Presented with an appalling set of facts, the North Carolina Supreme Court unanimously upheld the defendant’s convictions for murder, kidnapping, sex offense, and felony child abuse. The majority affirmed a […]
June 1, 2023
Last April, the North Carolina Supreme Court decided two significant cases involving claims that prosecutors impermissibly exercised peremptory challenges against prospective black jurors based on their race: State v. Hobbs, […]
November 23, 2021
Note from John Rubin: I regret to report that Emily Coward is leaving the School of Government. In her nine years at the School as part of our Public Defense […]
June 10, 2020
This post summarizes opinions issued by the Supreme Court of North Carolina on June 5, 2020.
February 18, 2020
A “peremptory strike” is a tool used by lawyers to exercise control over who is seated on a trial jury. When selecting a jury, attorneys may use peremptory strikes to […]
June 2, 2016
[Editor’s note: Emily Coward, the author of today’s post, is an attorney who works with the indigent defense education team at the School of Government. She is a co-author of […]
April 19, 2016
In the recent case of State v. Hurd, the N.C. Court of Appeals upheld a claim by a prosecutor that a defendant’s peremptory strike of a prospective White juror was […]
January 19, 2016
Scholar john powell succinctly defines implicit bias as “a habit of the mind.” He explains that our brains have a natural tendency to form associations (for example, we might see […]