North Carolina Criminal Law

Earlier this year National Public Radio ran a series on court costs entitled Guilty and Charged. The general point of the series was that “the costs of the criminal justice […]

Read post

This fall, North Carolina voters will decide whether to amend the state constitution. The proposed amendment would allow, for the first time, bench trials for felonies in superior court. Neither […]

Read post

A probationer is entitled to a hearing on an alleged probation violation, unless the hearing is waived. G.S. 15A-1345(e). What does it mean to waive a probation violation hearing? As […]

Read post

May community service fees be waived? I suspect some of you are thinking “I hope so, because they just were,” or something along those lines. It turns out to be […]

Read post

Following up on Jeff’s post yesterday about court costs and traffic citations, today’s post is about a trial judge’s authority to waive court costs. Under G.S. 7A-304, certain court costs […]

Read post

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court decided Berghuis v. Thompkins, an important Miranda case. (There are other issues in the case, too, but this post will focus on the Miranda […]

Read post

When a defendant pleads guilty, he waives a variety of rights, including the right to a trial, the right to confront the witnesses against him, and so on. The waiver […]

Read post

The Sixth Circuit, sitting en banc, recently decided a very interesting Miranda case. Garner v. Mitchell, available here, is a capital case.  The defendant stole a woman’s purse, took a […]

Read post