The hottest topic of the week -- aside from the gripping Duke/UNC basketball game on Wednesday night -- was certainly the hearing in Forsyth County about the constitutionality of the Racial Justice Act, G.S. 15A-2010 et seq. According to this News and Observer report, the state argued that the Act is "too sweeping to apply fairly across the state," and that "the law does not specify whether the courts should consider the race of the inmate, the victim or the jurors when considering bias claims." Judge William Wood rejected the state's constitutional arguments, and the story indicates that the merits of some defendants' claims may be heard as early as next month. Of course, the Racial Justice Act was passed by a Democrat-controlled legislature, and with the General Assembly in Republican hands, there is considerable speculation that reform or repeal of the Act may be in the works. In other news: 1. WRAL ran this story, noting that DWI defendants sentenced to prison typically don't serve their entire sentences. Jamie Markham did a more scholarly analysis of the same issue here last year. (It's hard to keep up with us!) An effort to make certain DWI sentences longer is now afoot in the legislature -- check out the new "aggravated level one" that would be created by HB 49. 2. As noted in a previous news roundup, legislation has also been proposed that would target video gaming/electronic sweepstakes, again. However, it seems as if interest in legalizing, regulating, and perhaps taxing [...]
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