May 3, 2016
There seem to be fewer and fewer reported decisions about criminal discovery in North Carolina. A recent North Carolina Supreme Court decision finding a discovery violation by the prosecution, State […]
December 10, 2014
Many criminal defense lawyers are reluctant to give incarcerated clients copies of discovery materials. Lawyers may worry that the materials will be stolen by other inmates, who will then use […]
October 2, 2014
Suppose Defendant is charged with sex offense against a child. He knows that DSS previously investigated similar allegations made by the child against other people and heard that DSS found […]
August 11, 2014
A national, empirical study of defenses found that the defense of entrapment arose in just 0.08% of cases, usually “to little avail.” Stephen G. Valdes, Frequency and Success: An Empirical […]
February 6, 2014
I’ve had several questions lately concerning search warrants for meth labs. The basic issue is whether officers who find hazardous chemicals and other dangerous items may destroy them right away, […]
September 12, 2013
In State v. Cooper, issued last week, the Court of Appeals reversed the defendant’s conviction for first-degree murder of his wife and ordered a new trial. The case has drawn […]
August 21, 2013
The North Carolina Court of Appeals decided its first breath-testing source code case yesterday. The court in State v. Marino affirmed the trial court’s determination that the defendant had no […]
August 10, 2011
For a variety of reasons, I’ve spent some time recently looking at expert discovery in criminal cases. I thought I’d put together a short summary of the law. The discovery […]
March 30, 2011
The United States Supreme Court decided Connick v. Thompson yesterday. In a nutshell, the plaintiff, John Thompson, spent 18 years in prison as a result of a Brady violation. After […]
August 4, 2010
Suppose that both the local police and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration suspect that Derek is selling drugs. The police are a step ahead, and they arrest Derek and charge […]