Elon Law scholar predicts N.C. justice trends for regional newspapers

Associate Dean Enrique Armijo discussed in the state's two largest newspapers the results of recent elections after Democrats won seats on the Supreme Court of North Carolina, the state’s Court of Appeals, and district attorney and sheriff's office races in large metropolitan areas.

Associate Dean Enrique Armijo
An in-depth look at the November elections by North Carolina’s two largest newspapers included extensive analysis by an Elon Law scholar who predicts policies and decisions in the years ahead that may be more “defendant-friendly.”

Enrique Armijo, associate dean for academic affairs and an associate professor of law, provided his insight for a report in the (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer that sought to explain the future of North Carolina’s justice system based on those results.

From the article by reporter Will Doran, first published online on January 3, 2019:

“I think it really is true that the DA elections are the areas in which there can be the most potential for change,” Enrique Armijo, an associate dean of the Elon University School of Law, said in an interview. “And the reason for that is, for better or worse, our criminal justice system embeds so much discretion in prosecutors. And it’s reasonable that moving from a Republican district attorney to a Democratic district attorney could have some consequences that are more defendant-friendly.”

Read the full report here.

Armijo’s scholarship has appeared in the Boston College Law Review, the Washington and Lee Law Review, the North Carolina Law Review, the peer-reviewed Communication Law and Policy and Political Science Quarterly, and other journals. An influential scholar often cited in news coverage of First Amendment issues, Armijo has also worked with regulators and practitioners on media reform throughout the world, including in Jordan, Rwanda and Myanmar.

Armijo’s work has been cited by the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Election Commission, and other agencies, and in testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. Armijo regularly comments on technology law issues for Bloomberg Law and serves as an Affiliated Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project.