April 11, 2024
The North Carolina Court of Appeals first recognized the concept of waiver by conduct in State v. Blakeney, 245 N.C. App. 452 (2016). There, the Court set forth three ways […]
February 7, 2023
In December, the North Carolina Supreme Court decided State v. Atwell, 2022-NCSC-135, ___ N.C. ___ (2022)—its third time weighing in on the issue of forfeiture of counsel. The defendant had […]
November 24, 2020
How does the appointment of counsel to represent juveniles with cases that are transferred to superior court for trial as adults work? This can be a confusing question to answer […]
December 10, 2019
If you type “miranda” into the search box on this blog, it will return more than 50 posts covering a wide range of related topics: the meaning of custody, deficient […]
September 27, 2018
Our trip to Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in London, did not disappoint. It is physically stunning, a collection of beautiful courtyards and historic buildings. As […]
June 26, 2018
In McCoy v. Louisiana, 584 U.S. ___, 138 S. Ct. 1500 (2018), the US Supreme Court held that a defendant’s Sixth Amendment counsel right was violated when trial counsel admitted […]
December 6, 2016
Twenty-five years ago the North Carolina Supreme Court departed from national standards on attorney-client decision-making and gave clients greater control over the direction of their case, including trial strategy and […]
July 5, 2016
Suppose that when a criminal defendant appears in court, he is advised of the right to have counsel appointed if indigent, tells the judge he wants to hire his own […]
April 26, 2016
The United States Supreme Court and North Carolina appellate courts have ruled that a defendant must make an unambiguous request for counsel under Miranda to bar an officer’s custodial interrogation. […]
February 22, 2016
In an opinion last week, the court of appeals helpfully summarized the law about how a defendant may lose the right to counsel, and may have recognized a new way […]