It’s a bird, it’s a plane . . . no, it’s a drone over the skies of North Carolina. And soon it may be operated by law enforcement. The News and Observer reports that the General Assembly is poised to enact S 446, which flew through the House yesterday and has been returned to the Senate for concurrence with relatively minor amendments. The bill repeals the prohibition on governmental use of unmanned aircraft enacted in 2013 and authorizes the State’s Chief Information Officer to approve the procurement and operation of unmanned aircraft systems by State agencies and local governments. In other news: “Bail makes poor people who would otherwise win their cases plead guilty,” according to this recent article in the New York Times Magazine. The article reports that of the nearly 200 defendants bailed out in New York City through a citywide fund to post bail for low-level offenders, 96 percent made every court appearance, and more than half had their charges dismissed. By comparison, defendants held on bail for the duration of their cases were convicted 92 percent of the time. Advocates for bail reform say such funds are simply a band-aid for a system in need of greater change, specifically, the elimination of cash bail. Prisoner and civil rights groups have asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate solitary confinement practices in North Carolina’s prisons. The News and Observer reports that advocacy groups delivered a 15-page letter on Monday to the DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights, which [...]
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