My colleagues and I have been busy orienting new district court judges this week, so I haven’t paid much attention to events taking place outside the confines of the Knapp-Sanders building. But that hasn’t stopped the criminal news from coming. Here are the highlights:
news roundup
News Roundup
Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Walter Scott. Freddie Gray. The past year has been dominated by news of encounters between police officers and unarmed black citizens that have resulted in tragedy. Sandra Bland is the latest name on the list. She died in jail from what is reported to be a self-inflicted hanging, but the videotape of the traffic stop that led to her arrest has many questioning why the encounter, which began with an officer stopping Bland for failing to use her turn signal, ever resulted in her arrest.
News Roundup
In an odd turn of events for the person known as the “champion of the falsely accused,” WRAL reports that Christine Mumma was accused herself this week by the North Carolina State Bar of violating the Rules of Professional Conduct. Mumma serves as executive director and legal counsel for the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence. The allegations arise from Mumma’s work to free Joseph Sledge, who spent thirty-six years behind bars for the killing of a mother and her daughter in Bladen County in 1976 before he was exonerated last January.
News Roundup
Yesterday a jury in Wake County convicted Markeith Council, a former detention officer at the Wake County jail, of involuntary manslaughter for killing inmate Shon McClain, who was jailed on misdemeanor charges, after McClain fought the guard. A video shown at the trial shows the much larger Council slamming McClain twice on the concrete floor. … Read more
News Roundup
Jeff is away from the office today so he entrusted me with the keys to the blog. I briefly considered filling this post with a series of hilarious 6-second Vines of my kids, but ultimately decided to stick with the traditional roundup of the week’s criminal law news. (What’s a Vine? See here. Or just … Read more
News Roundup
Jeff’s away and has left me in charge of the news roundup. So there’ll be no Gizmodo stories this week. (I’m still figuring out how to work my iPhone.) Fortunately, the week was full of criminal law news that doesn’t require the cracking of any source codes. 1. The General Assembly adjourned on Tuesday, July … Read more
News Roundup
Jeff has entrusted me with the virtual keys to the blog while he is away on vacation, and today will be my first crack at rounding up the week’s criminal law news. As always there’s a lot going on! 1. According to the annual summary report of uniform crime reporting data released this week, crime in … Read more
News Roundup
The biggest headlines this week surrounded the confirmation of Elena Kagan as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The New York Times has the basics here, and Dahlia Lithwick at Slate has a provocative piece suggesting that we might be in for many, many years of skirmishes between Justice Kagan and Chief … Read more
News Roundup
Lots of interesting stuff this week. Without further ado: 1. The front page of the News and Observer today has a story that begins as follows: “Someone accused of killing a white person in North Carolina is nearly three times as likely to get the death penalty than someone accused of killing a black person, … Read more
News Roundup
There have been several interesting stories since the last news roundup, which was two weeks ago. 1. The General Assembly adjourned the short session when it finished the budget. The budget includes cuts for the court system, along with virtually every other part of state government. My understanding is that the AOC has allocated a … Read more