I Want a New Trial! Now What? A District Court Judge’s Authority to Act...
Recall from yesterday’s post that we are considering the following scenario: Jay Jones is charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and given an unsecured bond of $1,000. He is convicted following...
View ArticleA New Addition to the School of Government’s Indigent Defense Manual Series
Emily Coward and I are glad to share a new resource with you: a reference manual entitled Raising Issues of Race in North Carolina Criminal Cases. If you are a person who likes to have a hard copy on...
View ArticleImplicit Bias: Why Race is Hard Even when People are Good*
Scholar john powell succinctly defines implicit bias as “a habit of the mind.” He explains that our brains have a natural tendency to form associations (for example, we might see a tall person and...
View ArticleIs Entering a Store After Having Been “Trespassed” Chargeable as Felony...
In a session that I taught for magistrates, I learned that there is a practice in some districts of charging suspects with felony breaking or entering of a building when they enter a store after having...
View ArticleWhat to Expect After a Traffic Stop: The Movie
As mentioned in a recent News Roundup, the Raleigh Police Department (RPD) produced a short video entitled “Traffic Stops: What to Expect as a Motorist,” instructing drivers who have been pulled over...
View ArticleReverse Batson Challenge Sustained
In the recent case of State v. Hurd, the N.C. Court of Appeals upheld a claim by a prosecutor that a defendant’s peremptory strike of a prospective White juror was racially discriminatory, which is the...
View ArticleFeds Focus on Fines and Fees
The U.S. Department of Justice recently issued a letter regarding its “strong interest” in putting a stop to unconstitutional court fines and fees that target the poor. According to the authors,...
View ArticleA Jury of One’s Peers
Summer is here and everyone is feeling excited about fair cross-section claims. Or at least I am after hearing an enlightening presentation about them, described below. Source and importance of the...
View ArticlePost-Rodriguez North Carolina Appellate Cases at a Glance
By now, most court actors are familiar with the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Rodriguez v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 135 S. Ct. 1609 (April 21, 2015) (discussed in a prior post) that a...
View ArticlePrying Open the Jury Room: Supreme Court Creates an Exception to the...
[Editor’s note: Today’s post was written by Alyson Grine and Emily Coward. Until last year, Alyson was the Defender Educator at the School of Government. She is now an Assistant Professor of Law at...
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