News
NC law enforcement agencies pan latest video sweepstakes appeal
State law enforcement agencies are urging the North Carolina Supreme Court to reject legal arguments from a video sweepstakes operator in a Robeson County case.
Opinion
Iryna Zarutska’s alleged killer not ready for trial?
The entire Western tradition of jurisprudence assumes law teaches by what it punishes and permits. So what is the American justice system teaching right now?
Opinion
To honor his conservative judicial philosophy, Griffin should concede
Society cannot have a stable legal foundation if courts frequently jump from one interpretation to another.
Opinion
How the NC Supreme Court helped develop a key American free-speech standard
The now-famous standard of “actual malice,” derived from the US Supreme Court’s Sullivan decision, has its roots in the decisions of 19th-century state courts like the NC Supreme Court.
Opinion
Justice’s questions could pave way for new NC deference standard
A fired Winston-Salem State University professor relied on comments from state Supreme Court Justice Richard Dietz when appealing to the state's highest court.
Opinion
North Carolina’s unique natural-law tradition
For the past three years, the conservative legal movement in America has been split by a debate over natural law. Basically, there are two schools of thought. The first, called positivism, is embodied by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who believed that judges should be bound by the text of the law as enacted by...
Opinion
Newby emphasizes ‘substance over form’ in felon firearm case
The N.C. Supreme Court chief justice writes that a "mere informality" shouldn't allow a criminal defendant to escape punishment.
Opinion
Originalism returns to the NC Supreme Court
The people of North Carolina, through the democratic electoral process, decided they believe judges should make clear interpretations of the law, not create law or policy whole-cloth by legislating from the bench. Judicial activism can end in our state’s highest court — as long as the originalists on the court stick with originalism. Starting this...
Opinion
The shifting cultural sand underneath SCOTUS’ in loco parentis decision
How much can freedom of speech be limited? Courts and legislatures alike have been grappling with this question since the signing of the Constitution. More recently, in 2017, high school freshman Brandi Levy did not make the varsity cheer team at her Pennsylvania public school. Levy then proceeded to post a Snapchat featuring her middle...
Opinion
SCOTUS showing subtleties of jurisprudence
We tend to think of U.S. Supreme Court justices as ideological, their views and actions mapping neatly onto the conventional liberal-to-conservative continuum of American politics. Their decisions are thought to conform to the party of the president who nominated them. The current conservative bloc is Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil...
Opinion
No. 118: The Lochner Court, Myth and Reality: Phillips Separates Myth From Reality
Lochner v. New York is an often-mentioned but misunderstood 1905 Supreme Court decision that lends its name to this excellent analysis of constitutional jurisprudence by Professor Michael J. Phillips. Phillips, professor emeritus of business administration at Indiana University, has written probably the best book by a nonlawyer on any aspect of constitutional law, and the best survey of the Lochner line of cases by anyone. This book is a penetrating revisionist history of a key period in our legal history.
