A UNC School of Government Blog
The biggest national story this week is the just-completed execution of Dennis McGuire by the state of Ohio. Because the state was not able to procure pentobarbital, a drug historically used in executions, it used a novel combination of drugs that resulted in McGuire gasping and convulsing for 10 minutes or more. Whether McGuire was … Read more
The new year is off to an interesting start. Here are some of the week’s top developments: Wake County DA not seeking re-election. Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby has announced that he will not seek re-election in November. The News and Observer reports that District Court Judge Ned Mangum is “contemplating a possible run … Read more
This will be the last blog post of 2013, and in fact, the last one until January 6, 2014, as we will be on our annual holiday hiatus until then. It may be an interesting holiday season, considering that a district attorney in Pennsylvania has announced the arrest of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for FUI … Read more
The lead story this week is the intersection of college sports and criminal law. Consider (1) former UNC professor Julius Nyang’oro has been charged with obtaining property by false pretenses in connection with an alleged no-show summer school class filled with UNC football players; (2) N.C. State running back Shadrach Thornton has been suspended from … Read more
Whoa! A very busy news week. Here’s the rundown: PD becomes DA. Public Defender Andy Womble has been appointed by Governor McCrory to fill the remainder of the term of deceased District Attorney Frank Parrish in District 1, as the Outer Banks Voice notes here. If a public defender has ever before become a district … Read more
The North Carolina Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section had its annual awards dinner last night. As always, it was an inspiration. Senior Deputy Attorney General Jim Coman received the Peter Gilchrist award as an outstanding career prosecutor, and Guilford County Public Defender Fred Lind received the Wade Smith Award as an outstanding career defense attorney. … Read more
The biggest news of the week may be that Frank Perry, the Secretary of the Department of Public Safety, has authorized a one-drug protocol for lethal injection, replacing the three-drug “cocktail” system previously in effect. WRAL has the AP story here. The story states that the new protocol will “slightly loosen the legal knot that’s … Read more
We’ve long believed that the North Carolina Criminal Law Blog is the best, but now we have proof. A reader pointed me to this list of blogs run by law professors. Our traffic would put us among the top 25 blogs on the list. More significantly, we would be the only single-state blog in the … Read more
I was busy at the judges’ and prosecutors’ conferences this week, but somehow, the world didn’t stop turning. Among the week’s top stories: A new edition of the North Carolina Defender Manual, Vol. 1, Pretrial, is now available. Word to the wise: the manual isn’t just useful for defense attorneys. It offers detailed coverage of … Read more
Over the past three weeks, two convicted murderers in Florida have escaped from prison by forging bogus “motions to reduce their respective sentences and . . . court orders granting the request.” Florida is prosecuting a third inmate for unsuccessfully attempting the same scheme. A prosecutor whose name was forged by the inmates released a … Read more