news

I was captivated this week by the escape of drug billionaire Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman from a maximum-security prison in Mexico. He walked out through a mile-long tunnel that led from his shower to a building beyond prison walls. You can see the inside of the tunnel here. The DEA is saying all the right things but must be just a little miffed about the whole thing, since (1) this is Guzman’s second escape from a Mexican prison, and (2) Mexico denied the United States’ request to extradite Guzman to face charges in the United States, claiming that it was able to ensure his continued confinement.

By coincidence, I recently finished The Cartel, a novel by Don Winslow about Mexico’s war on drugs. It starts with a Sinaloan kingpin’s escape from a maximum security prison in Mexico, so it’s timely and topical. It’s also bloody and riveting.

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This week’s roundup is packed full of good stuff, including news about a new member of the court of appeals, information about North Carolina’s leading role in a major law review piece, data on prosecutor diversity, an announcement of a new publication, and more. Check it out!

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The highly publicized escape of two murderers from a New York prison came to an end this week as Richard Matt was shot and killed and David Sweat was shot and captured. Sweat has been telling investigators about the escape and has apparently revealed quite a few interesting details. CNN has the latest here. For whatever reason, even our local media paid much less attention to the escape of a murderer from a North Carolina prison last weekend. Like the incident in New York, North Carolina’s escape involved romance between an inmate and a female guard, as WNCN reports here. The escapee has been recaptured.

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There were several major criminal law stories this week, none of them especially cheery. Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had his sentencing hearing. The result was not in doubt, as a jury had already returned a death verdict. But the judge spoke, several victims spoke – and the defendant spoke, offering an apology that seemed sincere to some and rang hollow to others. CNN’s extensive coverage of the story is here. Obviously, apologies are better suited for things like hurting another person’s feelings than for things like killing and maiming innocent victims, but I for one am glad that Tsarnaev showed the decency and humanity to express regret.

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For the last day or so, the headlines have been dominated by the multiple murder at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Law enforcement arrested Dylan Roof, 21, in Shelby, North Carolina. Roof is white, while the nine victims were black. Race appears to have been part of Roof’s motive. WRAL has the story here.

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The front page of my local newspaper today featured a story about the General Assembly’s vote to override the Governor’s veto of the legislation allowing magistrates to opt out of marriages. Attracting less attention in the public at large, but important to the readers of this blog, was the Governor’s signature of a bill changing the way that state supreme court justices are elected.

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Is the death penalty dying? It’s a fair question given that the Republican-controlled Nebraska legislature just abolished the punishment over the governor’s veto (the New York Times has the story here), and that yesterday’s ABC News poll reveals a “new low” in national support for the death penalty (albeit only over a time horizon of 15 years). It’s also the question Time magazine asked in this recent feature story. Here’s a related question that I’ll pose to readers: Which will come to North Carolina first, marijuana legalization or the repeal of the death penalty?

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It was a big news week, but I’ll start with the General Assembly. First off, it passed a law, S.L. 2015-31, that requires motor vehicles to have at least one “stop lamp,” or brake light, on each side of the rear of the vehicle. It thus effectively overruled State v. Heien, 214 N.C. App. 515 (2011), which held that G.S. 20-129(g) only requires one stop lamp.

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The big news at the General Assembly this week was the introduction of the House budget bill. Recent projections of a budget surplus contributed to a proposal to spend about 6% more than last year, including millions more for the courts and a 2% raise for most state employees. The News and Observer reports here that the AOC is “very pleased” with the House budget. Of course, there’s a long way to go before the budget is final.

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Come on, fellow citizens! Enough with the nudist exhibitionism in residential neighborhoods! According to this local story, a Salisbury man has been arrested and charged with indecent exposure after “sitting in the back yard totally naked . . . less than thirty feet from where [a neighbor’s] teen daughter was riding a horse.” We’ve had several somewhat similar incidents in the state recently, and regular readers may recall the controversy over whether nudity in one’s home or yard that is visible to others qualifies as indecent exposure. (I discussed that issue here.)

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