The top story of the week may be the impending repeal of the Racial Justice Act. On Wednesday, the House voted 77-39, mostly along party lines, in favor of the repeal bill. The Senate previously approved a slightly different version of the bill. It appears that the Senate plans to approve the House version next Tuesday, at which point, the bill would go to the Governor. You can chart the progress of the bill, S 306, here. In other news: "Moral Mondays." More than 150 people were arrested at the General Assembly during this week’s “Moral Monday” protest. The News and Observer has the story here. The sheer volume may be stressing the criminal justice system: some arrestees apparently spent many hours in holding cells prior to their initial appearances, which I imagine is due to an overwhelming number of arrestees for a limited number of magistrates. I’m sure that Wake County’s district court courtrooms are bracing for an influx of contested cases with potential constitutional defenses. NSA surveillance. The National Security Agency is gathering all kinds of data from all kinds of places about all kinds of people, generally with the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The story’s moving too quickly for me to summarize it accurately, but the latest New York Times article is here, and the Volokh Conspiracy has a robust conversation about the legality of the various surveillance programs that have been disclosed. Race and marijuana arrests. The ACLU came out with a report this week, the [...]
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