North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Sometimes the crime is caught on video. When this happens, can an officer identify the perpetrator as the defendant? This issue came up in State v. Weldon, a recent court of appeals case. Let’s go through the rules.

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This post addresses three recurrent issues concerning eyewitness identification:

1. When, if at all, is expert testimony about eyewitness identification admissible?
2. When, if at all, is an indigent defendant entitled to funds with which to hire an expert on eyewitness identification?
3. May jury instructions, rather than expert testimony, be used to inform the jury about factors relevant to the accuracy of an eyewitness identification?

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The longest opinion issued by the court of appeals this week was Judge Ervin’s 45-page treatise in State v. Ward, __ N.C. App. __ (2009). Although the opinion contains other […]

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An interesting article appeared yesterday in the New York Times. You can read it here, but the gist of it is that the federal government and about 15 states are […]

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