Earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters have been top-of-mind for most North Carolina residents this week. Not for me, though. I have remained focused like a laser beam on tracking criminal law news. 1. I blogged last week about the Durham murder case that was dismissed due to the state's release of the decedent's bones to her family after a defense request for the preservation of physical evidence. As expected, the state has appealed the dismissal, and the court of appeals has stayed the dismissal pending resolution of the appeal. The News and Observer has the story here. 2. The paper also recently ran this story, about a break-in at the state supreme court building. The perpetrator only got into a stairwell, so the work of the court has not been impaired. Justice Edmunds discovered the intrusion when he came in to work on Sunday evening. 3. The sexual assault charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn have been dismissed. The New York Times has this story on point. In a nutshell, prosecutors lost confidence in the complaining witness after learning that she had lied about her past and, likely, about at least some aspects of her encounter with Strauss-Kahn. 4. The United States Supreme Court is poised to consider the issue of eyewitness identification in the coming Term, for the first time since 1977. Adam Liptak's story for the Times is here. It's a good read, opening as follows: "Every year, more than 75,000 eyewitnesses identify suspects in criminal investigations. Those identifications are [...]
Faculty Coordinators
