I recently presented a case law update at the DAs' conference, and there was a reasonable amount of interest in a case decided earlier this year by the Court of Appeals. The case is State v. Dean, __ N.C. App. __, 674 S.E.2d 453 (2009), and the issue that I thought was most interesting had to do with the trial judge's decision to remove certain spectators from the courtroom. Dean was a gang-related murder case from Durham. The defendant's first trial ended in a hung jury. During that trial, several jurors expressed concern for their safety, and spectators apparently "used cell phone cameras." (It isn't clear from the opinion how the cameras were used, but a possible inference is that they were used to photograph the jurors.) The state decided to re-try the defendant. Shortly after the second trial began, a witness testified that one of the participants in the shooting was a spectator in the courtroom. A juror subsequently told the bailiff that several jurors were nervous about the apparent presence of gang members in the courtroom. The judge asked the person who had been identified as a participant in the shooting to approach the bench. Upon learning that he was a "co-defendant" in the case, the judge banned him and three of his companions -- all of whom were apparently wearing white shirts -- from the courtroom. The defendant objected to the removal of his "friends and family support" without any evidence that they had done anything wrong. The [...]
Faculty Coordinators
