North Carolina Criminal Law

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. __, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), holding that New York could not […]

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The maximum punishment for driving while impaired in violation of G.S. 20-138.1 increased from two to three years in 2011. As a result, defendants convicted of misdemeanor DWI and sentenced […]

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Do law-abiding North Carolina residents have a right to carry a gun openly in public? Generally, yes. Federal constitutional right? The Supreme Court has recently ruled that the Second Amendment […]

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In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the United States Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess firearms for lawful purposes […]

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I wrote here about 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), the federal statute that prohibits people who have been convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors from possessing firearms. Federal law also prohibits felons, […]

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The Supreme Court just finished the Term that began in October 2009, and it went out with a bang. On Monday, it announced what was perhaps the most-anticipated opinion of […]

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A divided court of appeals decided another significant gun case this week. But before I talk about the opinion in State v. Whitaker, I’ll briefly summarize the legal backdrop for […]

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We’ve seen several significant cases concerning gun laws in the past few years. The two biggest, of course, are District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. ___ (2008), in which […]

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The state supreme court issued a batch of opinions last Friday, and while several of them are notable, the one that has received the most attention is Britt v. North […]

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Several recent news stories that may be of interest: 1. Governor Perdue just signed S 920, which makes substantial changes to the probation laws. For example, it requires all probationers […]

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