A UNC School of Government Blog
One recurring question I get asked is this: If the Defendant engages in two sex acts in one continuous transaction, how many assaults have occurred? When the acts are vaginal intercourse and the charge is rape, each separate act of vaginal intercourse that constitutes rape is a separate, punishable offense. State v. Dudley, 319 N.C. … Read more
The court of appeals recently decided a few cases involving satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders, so it seemed a good time to write a blog post about it and to update my sex offender registration and monitoring flow chart. In State v. Clark, the defendant was convicted of first-degree rape under G.S. 14-27.2(a)(1)—that is, … Read more
I’ve written before about how North Carolina’s law related to sex offender registration has changed over the years in response to federal mandates. In 2006 Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, Title I of which is the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, or SORNA. SORNA includes a set of minimum … Read more
The News & Observer ran an article last weekend about some of the restrictions on where sex offenders are allowed to live or go. One of the laws mentioned was G.S. 14-208.18(a)(2), which makes it a Class H felony for certain registered sex offenders to “knowingly be . . . [w]ithin 300 feet of any … Read more
Yesterday, I taught a class on the use of Rule 404(b) evidence in sexual assault cases. During the class, we discussed the general rule against admitting the bare fact of a defendant’s prior conviction. As Jessie discussed here, the basic idea is that even when Rule 404(b) evidence is admissible, if the bad act at … Read more
I’m preparing to teach a session during which I’ll cover the use of Rule 404(b) evidence in sexual assault cases. (As most readers of this blog know, Rule 404(b) evidence is evidence of bad acts by the defendant other than the charged offense; such evidence isn’t supposed to be used to show that the defendant … Read more
I am sometimes asked if a defendant convicted of a reportable sex crime can plea bargain his or her way out of the obligation to register. I have also been asked if a defendant convicted of a non-reportable offense can plead his or her way into registration. A formal advisory opinion from that state attorney … Read more
I mentioned in my last post that State v. Bowditch was not the only satellite-based monitoring (SBM) case recently decided by the Supreme Court of North Carolina. The court also affirmed four other decisions from the court of appeals and decided it had improvidently allowed discretionary review in another. Although those decisions turned in part … Read more
The court of appeals decided two satellite-based monitoring cases last week, State v. May and State v. Cowan. The May case—which primarily orders the correction of a clerical error—reminds us that as used in the sex offender context, “offense against a minor” does not mean any sex crime that happens to be against a minor. … Read more
I recently finished a comprehensive update of my Sex Offender Registration and Monitoring Flow Chart. It’s available here. As before, it includes a list of all reportable crimes (with a key to the relevant effective date applicable to each) and a summary of the satellite-based monitoring (SBM) determination hearing process required when a person is … Read more