North Carolina Lawyers Weekly

The majority found the term “habitual drunkard,” as used in the Virginia statute that makes it a criminal offense for persons deemed habitual drunks to buy or consume alcohol, was unconstitutionally vague and could violate the Eighth Amendment. Background Homeless ...

An out-of-state citizen could bring a constitutional challenge against a statute that limited copies of the state’s registered voter list to state residents because the list was closely connected to political speech and the statute imposes both content- and speaker-based ...

Parties who entered into settlement agreements with the city of Baltimore arising out of alleged police misconduct will no longer be bound by a gag clause routinely included in those agreements after the court held the clause was unenforceable and ...

After holding it had jurisdiction to entertain President Trump’s appeal from the district court’s decision “effectively” denying his immunity motion to dismiss, the court never reached the immunity question and, instead, held that Maryland and the District of Columbia lacked ...

President Trump will no longer face a suit brought by Maryland and the District of Columbia over his alleged violation of the Emoluments clause after the court granted the president’s petition for writ of mandamus and concluded the plaintiffs lacked ...

Where the government allowed a jury to be empaneled and began presenting testimony despite the fact that a subpoenaed witness had not appeared in court, as required, for the first two days of trial, and a mistrial was granted on ...

The state’s termination of a lease to which it was a party was not an unconstitutional impairment of contract under the U.S. Constitution. We affirm the trial court’s grant of (1) defendant Brooks’ motion to dismiss and (2) the state ...

North Carolina’s ban on the unauthorized practice of law is not constitutionally infirm as applied to a trade association because it does not restrict the association’s speech, association or related rights and does not violate the state’s Monopoly Clause. Background ...

A parole board is not required to consider age-related mitigating characteristics of a defendant who was sentenced in 1988 when he was 17, to life with the possibility of parole. While the Supreme Court has addressed the sentencing of minors ...

A school did not violate the Establishment or Free Speech clauses by presenting an 11th-grade history unit that provided information about Islam, and tested a student’s understanding of that knowledge through a test. Background During the 2014-2015 school year, Caleigh ...