News Roundup

Published for NC Criminal Law on August 01, 2014.

Jeff is away today, so I will round up the week’s legal news on his behalf. UNC-Chapel Hill professor killed. This story broke last week, but campus is still reeling from the news that beloved pharmacy professor Feng Liu was killed when he was robbed during a lunchtime walk near campus. He was apparently beaten over the head with a landscaping stone by assailants who stole his wallet. Two suspects, both with felony records, were quickly arrested and charged with armed robbery and murder. One had just finished a term of post-release supervision a few weeks ago and the other was wearing an electronic monitor as a condition of pretrial release for pending charges in Durham. The dynamics of the case obviously call to mind the murder of UNC’s Eve Carson in 2008. The case will surely raise questions about pretrial release and risk management (this local Chapel Hill story already raised some of them), but for now my thoughts are with the family and friends of Professor Liu, who was by all accounts a wonderful man. Lovette acquitted. One of the men convicted of murdering Eve Carson, Laurence Lovette Jr., was found not guilty this week of the murder of Duke graduate student Abhijit Mahato. Mr. Mahato was robbed and shot in the head in his Durham apartment in 2008. Though testimony of a purported confession and links to the Carson case were allowed at trial, Lovette’s counsel focused on the lack of physical evidence tying him to the crime. [...]