At least here in the Triangle, the headlines today are all about the Wake County conviction of Bradley Cooper for killing his wife, Nancy. I haven't followed the trial closely, but I will follow the appeal with interest, because the defense has made clear that the trial judge's exclusion of the defendant's proposed expert witnesses on computer forensics will be the centerpiece of the appeal. (Defense counsel asserted after the trial that "had the jury been permitted to hear the testimony of our computer experts [who would have contested damaging evidence that the police extracted from the defendant's computer] the verdict likely would have been different," and expressed an eagerness to seek review.) The admissibility of expert testimony on computer forensics is an issue of particular interest to me, and it's an area in which we don't currently have specific case law. In other news: 1. The General Assembly keeps rolling along. It has enacted S.L. 2011-60, Ethen's Law, which creates several new offenses concerning unborn children; is making considerable headway on H 483, which would expand the category of crimes for which an arrest requires the taking of a DNA sample (the News and Observer reports briefly on the bill here); and also appears to be smiling on S 105, which would make most second-degree murders Class B1 felonies. Stay tuned. 2. Of course, the main focus of the legislature is the budget. And while the House's proposed budget cuts funding to some extent for almost every state agency and [...]
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