A UNC School of Government Blog
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 right to examine the source code for the Intoximeter EC IR II, the instrument used to analyze his breath alcohol concentration after he was arrested … Read more
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 statutes impose identical obligations on the parties regarding their experts. Each side must give notice to the other of any expert witnesses that it “reasonably … Read more
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 he was exonerated, he sued the district attorney’s office, claiming that the office failed to train prosecutors adequately about their Brady obligations. A jury agreed … Read more
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 him before the federal authorities are able to do so. Derek’s lawyer asks the prosecutor to provide discovery and argues that because the DEA was … Read more
There’s a recurrent discovery issue in child pornography cases. Generally, it goes like this: the defendant is arrested and charged with a child pornography offense. The prosecution contends that the defendant’s computer contains images of child pornography. The defendant retains a computer expert to examine his computer, hoping to show that the images were downloaded … Read more
I blogged recently about whether the state is obligated to produce its witnesses’ criminal records in discovery. (Recall that the answer is no, in North Carolina, with some exceptions.) Another question that sometimes comes up regarding the state’s witnesses is whether the state must inform the defense if one of its witnesses goes missing, or … Read more
I’ve been asked several times whether the state is required to provide the defense with the criminal record of the state’s witnesses. There are two possible justifications for such a requirement. First, one could argue that disclosure is mandated by the discovery statutes, G.S. 15A-901 et seq. Second, one could argue that disclosure is required … Read more
I’ve been involved in the New Prosecutors’ School this week, but the flow of criminal law news has been constant. First, the News and Observer had an interesting story yesterday, available here, about the use of protective orders under the discovery statute. The details are a little hazy, but it appears that a protective order … Read more