A divided North Carolina Supreme Court decided State v. Packingham last Friday, upholding the statutory ban on registered sex offenders using social networking websites that allow minors to join. G.S. 14-202.5. The defendant argued that the statute violated his First Amendment rights, but the court ruled that the statute targets conduct, not speech, and that any incidental burden on speech is justifiable. A law professor’s skeptical analysis of the decision is here. Another professor’s suggestion that the case may merit review by the United States Supreme Court is here. In other news: Eight year old charged with murder. This local story reports on a sad Alabama case in which “[a]n 8-year-old Birmingham boy [has been] charged with murder in the beating death of a toddler girl left in his care.” It seems that such a case could arise in North Carolina. “Under the common law doctrine of doli incapax, children below the age of seven are conclusively presumed to be incapable of committing a crime [while] . . . children between the ages of seven and fourteen are also presumed incapable of committing a crime but the presumption may be rebutted by proof that the child is capable of discerning between good and evil.” State v. Green, 124 N.C. App. 269 (1996) (noting that the enactment of the juvenile code has eroded the common law doctrine for juveniles between thirteen and fourteen). Transfer to adult criminal court is mandatory in first-degree murder cases, regardless of the juvenile’s age. G.S. 7B-2200. New [...]
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