Private Prisons have been touted as a solution to bloated bureaucracies, run-away unions, mis-management, and corruption. The problem is that private prisons are not really private, but they are prisons. Because “private” prisons get their money through government contracts, the incentive structure is confused, sometimes criminally so. When private contractors lobby government for public dollars,…
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Author Archives: Damon Chetson
Lower BAC – Good for a Raleigh DWI lawyer… But is it good policy?
I wrote yesterday about the NTSB’s proposal to force states to lower the per se limit from .08 BrAC/BAC to .05 BrAC/BAC. The federal government can’t order the states to modify their laws. But the federal government has a lot of power – mostly in the form of highway dollars which are collected through federal…
NTSB Recommends Lowering BAC in Driving While Impaired Laws
The big news in DWI law this week comes from Washington, DC where the National Traffic Safety Board voted to recommend that the 50 states and the District of Columbia lower the per se limit from .08 to .05 Blood or Breath Alcohol Concentration. If adopted by North Carolina, the result would likely be that…
The Year of Landmark Rulings: Brady v. Maryland
If you ask a criminal defense lawyer what the most important cases are, she’s liable to include Brady v. Maryland if only because every time she files a discovery request on the government it includes a reference to Brady’s requirement that the government turn over any exculpatory information in its files to the defense. We’re…
Changes in Wake County DWI Courtrooms
Wake County continues to have the largest number of DWI arrests of any county in the State. In short, DWI enforcement in Raleigh is up. And, apparently, general traffic citations are somewhat down in Raleigh and the surrounding areas. In order to address the backlog of DWI cases, the court system has recently made changes…
Waiting for Justice
In a civil case, court appearances can be handled almost exclusively by the attorneys. Whether you’re a defendant being sued, or a plaintiff doing the suing, the attorneys – with the consent of the parties – can make virtually all appearances without the actual parties being present. (Of course, attorneys need to get consent from…
Prosecutorial Control of the Calendar Undone in South Carolina
North Carolina and South Carolina are the only two states where prosecutors control the calendar. In almost all other states, a neutral party – a trial court administrator or the judges – control the calendar in consultation with both the state and the defense to decide when a case is brought to court for motions,…
Know-Nothing Paul Mirengoff and Miranda vs. FRCrPro Rule 5
Paul Mirengoff does not know what he’s talking about and admits so. I have never practiced criminal law (except briefly at the international level) and have not studied it since 1974. Thus, like most Americans, much of what I think I know about criminal procedure comes from watching television and movies. That doesn’t stop him…
The Limits of Miranda – Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Interrogation
Slate magazine’s Emily Bazelon has a good article on Miranda in the context of the recent capture of a suspect in the Boston marathon bombing. But it’s easy to overstate both the importance of Miranda either to the defendant or to the government in any particular case, including a high profile case in which there…
DWIs and Warrants
As if it were an open question, the Supreme Court today reaffirmed the principle that warrants are required before the police conduct a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment, except in certain limited circumstances. Criminal defense lawyers have long complained that the exceptions swallow the rule, such that warrants are rarely required in fact,…
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