news

There’s been a lot going on this week. The first evidentiary hearing under the Racial Justice Act has come to an end. The Fayetteville Observer reports on the parties’ closing arguments here. Both sides are expected to file additional briefs, and a decision is unlikely for several weeks. The national media is interested in the … Read more

Last week’s top stories are still going, including litigation under the Racial Justice Act in Fayetteville. The Fayetteville Observer’s latest story is here, summarizing the testimony of the state’s statistician. For those with a numerical bent, it’s pretty interesting. But many of us are looking ahead to next week and Valentine’s Day. Apparently that includes … Read more

All roads lead to Fayetteville. Now, there’s a sentence I never thought I’d type. But this week, it’s true. Mainly, the first evidentiary hearing in a Racial Justice Act case is taking place there. Here’s today’s article from the Fayetteville Observer, which details some of the testimony that attorneys for death row inmate Marcus Reymond … Read more

The Jones GPS tracking case was the biggest legal news of the week. I blogged about it here, and plan to post some additional thoughts next week, but in the meantime, it is worth noting the Supreme Court Haiku capturing the case: GPS on car Cops installed and monitored “Search” that needs warrant In other … Read more

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  To commemorate the occasion, National Public Radio’s Fresh Air broadcast this interview with Ohio State University law professor Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Alexander argues that the mass incarceration of African-Americans in the war on drugs strips such … Read more

There was some serious legal news this week, like the issuance of the Supreme Court’s recent Brady decision, Smith v. Cain, and the Court’s decision to grant certiorari in the dog-sniffs-a-house case I mentioned last week, Florida v. Jardines. The fact that homicide is no longer one of the top 15 causes of death in … Read more

The new year has begun with a bang: lots of criminal law news this week. For example, the General Assembly considered Wednesday night whether to override the Governor’s veto of the bill that would have effectively repealed the Racial Justice Act. The Senate voted 31-19 to override the veto, along party lines. But the House … Read more

This will be the last post of 2011. I’m off next week and many of our readers are, too. It’s been a fantastic year on the blog. We rocketed past a million total hits and saw a massive increase in email subscriptions. I have been particularly happy to see a nice uptick in the number … Read more

Happy belated Bill of Rights Day! The end of the year is supposed to be slow, but this week has been completely full of criminal justice news. Among the major stories are the following: 1. In Raleigh, Governor Perdue vetoed the de facto repeal of the Racial Justice Act. Republicans have the votes to override … Read more

Charlotte’s got banking, Asheville’s got mountains, and Eastern North Carolina has the beach, but right now, the Triangle has criminal justice stories in spades. In Orange County, the taking of testimony has begun in the Laurence Lovette/Eve Carson trial. The News and Observer story here includes an interesting discussion of the feasibility of emergency PINs … Read more