Raising Issues of Race in North Carolina Criminal Cases

Book excerpt: View this manual, a reference in the School's Indigent Defense Manual Series, free of charge at defendermanuals.sog.unc.edu. Raising Issues of Race in North Carolina Criminal Cases is a resource for public defenders and appointed counsel who represent poor people accused of crimes. This publication is also useful to judges, prosecutors, and others who work to safeguard the integrity of the court system. The book describes the ways in which considerations of race may improperly enter into the conduct of a criminal case, and gathers, organizes, and analyzes the law on the intersection of race and the criminal justice system. Ten chapters cover a variety of topics, such as: -stops, searches, and arrests; -eyewitness identification; -pretrial release; -selective prosecution; -composition of grand and trial juries; -trial issues; and -sentencing.