Earlier this summer, Brian Laundrie, 23, and Gabby Petito, 22, took off in a van to explore our national parks. They were documenting their trip with frequent social media posts and they had a significant following. Then those posts, and all communication from the couple, abruptly stopped. Gabby Petito disappeared. Laundrie returned to Florida alone. Then he disappeared. Ultimately, Petito’s remains were discovered in Wyoming, near where the couple’s last known whereabouts. A coroner said Petito’s death was a homicide by manual strangulation. Naturally, the authorities were keen to find Laundr ..read more

Anti-abortion believers have been fighting Roe v. Wade since it was decided nearly 50 years ago. We all have our own opinions, but the Supreme Court has held to the Roe ruling primarily to provide a stable legal framework in which people can make rational decisions. They rely on the doctrine of “stare decisis,” which obligates the court to stick with the final ruling on the issue even when a lot of people don’t like it. Ideally, once an issue has been put before the court, that issue is firmly decided. The ruling is now precedential and lower courts must follow it unless they can show that the ..read more

Faith Hedgepeth, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, was found beaten to death and possibly raped in September 2012. She was found naked from the waist down, propped against her bed in a pool of blood. A note saying “I’m not stupid b----- jealous” was discovered nearby. Now, police say that a man who hadn’t even been a suspect may be responsible for the horrific murder. Miguel Enrique Salguero-Olivares, 28, was arrested recently after police said his DNA matched a semen sample from the crime scene and a composite description arrived at using the DNA. Olivar ..read more

Human remains found in an undeveloped camping area near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming are those of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old woman from New York. Petito left in July on a cross-country van camping trip with her boyfriend, 23-year-old Brian Laundrie. The couple was later seen fighting and police separated them for a night. Then, Petito went inexplicably missing. Now, Laundrie is missing, as well. Initially, after Petito’s disappearance, Laundrie returned alone to his parents’ home in Florida with the van. He then refused to speak with officers investigating the disappearance of Ms. Pet ..read more

It’s unconstitutional to make it harder for people of a certain race to vote, even when the intention was partisan instead of racist, a North Carolina superior court has found. That means that a voter ID law that Republicans pushed through in 2018 is unconstitutional. A 2-1 majority of the court made clear that they weren’t calling lawmakers racist – or even implying that their motivation was primarily racist. Indeed, the purpose of the law seems to have been partisan. According to the court, “the Republican majority ‘target(ed) voters who, based on race, were unlikely to vote for the majority ..read more

Johnny Autry Jr., 44, died at Pamlico Correctional Institution in January under suspicious circumstances. In a report, a pathologist at East Carolina University said it was a methamphetamine overdose. His family isn’t so sure. True, Johnny was at Pamlico after a drug conviction. And, the prison said that he was seen “smoking something” before the incident that cost him his life. But, when his family viewed his body before his funeral, Johnny had two black eyes, facial bruises and cuts on his face and the top of his head – injuries that weren’t mentioned in the pathologist’s report. Was he beat ..read more

The state of North Carolina has taken another big step towards improving its criminal justice system. Governor Roy Cooper recently signed a bill into law that raised the minimum age of prosecution for children from six to eight. However, the change falls short of raising the minimum age of prosecution to 10, as was initially proposed. One of the primary sponsors of the bill, Rep. Danny Britt said that prosecutors objected to raising the age to 10, as did some lawmakers in the House. Governor Cooper’s North Carolina Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice recommended setting the minimu ..read more

The state of North Carolina has taken another big step towards improving its criminal justice system. Governor Roy Cooper recently signed a bill into law that raised the minimum age of prosecution for children from six to eight. However, the change falls short of raising the minimum age of prosecution to 10, as was initially proposed. One of the primary sponsors of the bill, Rep. Danny Britt said that prosecutors objected to raising the age to 10, as did some lawmakers in the House. Governor Cooper’s North Carolina Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice recommended setting the minimu ..read more

Governor Roy Cooper has signed four bills into law after receiving recommendations from his Task Force for Racial Equality in Criminal Justice (TREC). “We have seen that the criminal justice system doesn’t always treat everyone the same – and too often the differences are disproportionately felt by people of color,” he told reporters. “This legislation will take us one step further toward a more equitable and just North Carolina for all.” The four bills include House Bill 300 on criminal justice reform, Senate Bill 301 on expungements, House Bill 436 on supporting law enforcement mental healt ..read more

Capitol Police responded to a frightening call recently, when a man claimed he had gunpowder and explosives in his truck, which he had parked outside the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill. In a Facebook video, the suspect, a Grover, North Carolina man, said that he had a seven-pound keg of gunpowder and 2.5 pounds of an explosive called Tannerite in his truck. He also suggested there were other bombs around D.C. When a police officer responded to a call about the truck, the man apparently openly told the officer that he had a bomb and he appeared to be holding a detonator in his hand. The Ca ..read more