The Community Caretaking Exception to the Warrant Requirement
The court of appeals recently expanded the community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement, entering a national controversy over the proper scope of the doctrine. This post explains the...
View ArticleCourt of Appeals Strictly Limits Scope of Traffic Stops
Yesterday, the court of appeals decided a very important traffic stop case. Its ruling strictly limits officers to pursuing the original justification for a traffic stop, and prohibits officers from...
View ArticleCourt of Appeals Rules on Prior Convictions from New Jersey
Last month, the court of appeals decided State v. Hogan, __ N.C. App. __, 758 S.E.2d 465 (2014), a case about the use of a defendant’s prior convictions from New Jersey in determining the defendant’s...
View ArticleCounting Joined Offenses for Prior Record Points
Before Structured Sentencing we had Fair Sentencing. Under Fair Sentencing, there was no such thing as “prior record level,” but a prior conviction could qualify as an aggravating factor, exposing a...
View ArticleThat Court of Appeals Ballot
In July John Martin, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals, announced his retirement effective August 1st. Given the timing of his decision, state law requires an election in November to fill the...
View ArticlePrivate Property Can Be a “Public Place” under the Indecent Exposure Statute
Several recent news reports have involved people removing their clothes in their own homes or on their own property, but in view of neighbors or passers-by. For example, Charlotte’s “naked neighbor”...
View ArticleN.C. Court of Appeals Rules That Affidavit For Search Warrant to Search...
Last week a three-judge panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals in State v. Allman (5 Jan. 2016), ruled (2-1) that a search warrant to search a residence for drugs was not supported by probable...
View ArticleBad Driving Doesn’t Necessarily Violate Chapter 20
That’s my take-away from State v. Johnson, decided by the court of appeals last week. Facts. Johnson began at 10:00 one February evening in Hendersonville. Snow had just begun to fall. An officer was...
View ArticleCourt of Appeals: Pleading Standards Are Relaxed for Citations
Last week, the court of appeals decided State v. Allen, a case that holds that the pleading requirements that apply to indictments and other accusatory pleadings don’t necessarily apply to citations....
View ArticleN.C. Court of Appeals Rules That Defendant Did Not Make An Unambiguous...
The United States Supreme Court and North Carolina appellate courts have ruled that a defendant must make an unambiguous request for counsel under Miranda to bar an officer’s custodial interrogation. A...
View ArticleCourt of Appeals Finds Extension of Traffic Stop Unsupported by Reasonable...
Last week, the court of appeals decided State v. Bedient, a significant post-Rodriguez opinion on traffic stops. The court ruled that an officer lacked reasonable suspicion to extend a stop by a few...
View ArticleAn Officer’s Reasonable Mistake of Law and Recent Court of Appeals Ruling
The United States Supreme Court in 2014 ruled in Heien v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 530 (affirming State v. Heien, 366 N.C. 271 (2012)), that an officer’s objectively reasonable mistake of law in...
View ArticleDrug Users, Drug Sellers, and Probable Cause
Here’s a common fact pattern: Officers find a person in possession of drugs. The officers say, in effect, “we won’t arrest you if you’ll tell us who sold you the drugs.” The person then reports having...
View ArticleNorth Carolina Court of Appeals Finds That Erroneous Completion of Juvenile...
Last week, the North Carolina Court of Appeals in State v. Watson (October 18, 2016) ruled that an officer’s erroneous completion of a juvenile waiver of rights form did not bar the admissibility of...
View ArticleFailure to Allege, in an Application for a Search Warrant, that the Premises...
Sometimes officers have probable cause to believe that a person committed a crime, have probable cause that evidence of the crime will be found in the person’s residence, and seek a search warrant for...
View ArticleThe 2016 Election
Wow. That was a surprise. Donald Trump has been elected to serve as the nation’s 45th president, defying the outcome nearly all the experts predicted, in what The Washington Post called a “shocking...
View ArticleFive Things I’m Thankful For
Today’s post is the last for the week since the School of Government is closed Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday. In honor of the occasion, I want to recognize five criminal-law-related...
View ArticleProving a Minor’s Sexual Purpose for Sexual Assault Crimes
A recent Court of Appeals opinion turned on a point of law that sometimes trips up folks in sexual assault cases: When a juvenile is alleged to have committed a sexual assault requiring proof of a...
View ArticleCourt of Appeals Caseload Information
House Bill 239 would reduce the number of judges on the court of appeals from 15 to 12. It has passed the House and awaits Senate consideration. Proponents of the bill (mostly Republicans) say that the...
View ArticleWhen Does a Seizure Occur When an Officer’s Vehicle Displays Emergency Lights...
Jeff Welty wrote a post in 2010 on when a seizure occurs after an officer operates emergency lights to order a driver to stop his or her vehicle. This post updates his post by summarizing the...
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