What a week! The news stories just kept coming. It started off over the weekend, when the News and Observer published this interesting article about upcoming appellate arguments over the state's "born alive" rule. As the article notes, "[t]he state Supreme Court has said that to convict someone for murder under common law, the victim must be born alive, capable of living independently of his mother, and must have died from injuries suffered prior to birth." Apparently, 35 states follow the contrary rule, i.e., they allow murder charges to be brought based on the killing of a fetus. The article notes that the General Assembly may address this issue as well. In other news: 1. Durham novelist and convicted murder Michael Peterson is seeking a new trial, according to this News and Observer report. The basis of his request is that former SBI agent Duane Deaver, who has been blamed for many of the problems at the SBI lab, was a crucial witness at Peterson's trial. The motion apparently alleges that "Deaver has had a long-standing pattern and practice of fabricating inculpatory evidence, concealing exculpatory evidence, tailoring his testimony to whatever the prosecutor wanted or needed him to say, and committing perjury in order to advance his primary goal: to secure the conviction of the person on trial." 2. Several School of Government publications and educational opportunities were released this week. The 2010 supplement to North Carolina Crimes is available here; a recent webinar on felony sentencing is available free in [...]
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