July 3, 2025
In State v. Aspiote, ___ N.C. App. ___ (May 21, 2025), the North Carolina Court of Appeals determined that the trial court erred in holding a defendant in direct criminal […]
February 11, 2021
Every practicing attorney and judge has by now likely seen the video of the Texas attorney who appeared at a court hearing conducted via Zoom in the form of a […]
September 10, 2020
If a defendant has fully served a term of imprisonment, can he or she be further imprisoned for not paying a fine or costs?
June 6, 2018
When setting conditions of pretrial release in domestic violence cases, magistrates and judges often order a defendant not to contact the victim. Those directives clearly apply to a defendant once […]
April 11, 2018
This scenario will sound familiar to many criminal attorneys: you’re in court, the DA calls the next case, and the judge asks John Q. Defendant how he pleads? “Your Honor, […]
August 11, 2016
One of the first posts I wrote on this blog was about the punishment for criminal contempt. The post included a discussion about whether sentences for contempt could be run […]
June 15, 2015
Courts around the country have struggled to address inappropriate cell phone usage by jurors. Some judges have used their contempt powers to deal with the issue. In Oregon, a judge […]
June 9, 2014
The murky law of contempt — particularly the distinction between civil and criminal contempt — got even more confusing last month with the Court of Appeals’ decision in Tyll v. […]
July 25, 2013
Sentences for criminal contempt may be suspended. That has been understood as a matter of case law for a while, see Bishop v. Bishop, 90 N.C. App 499 (1988), and […]
May 30, 2013
Two cases this month from the Court of Appeals, one published and one not, offer different perspectives on the meaning of an appeal for a “trial de novo” in superior […]