blankBrittany Bromell

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News Roundup

On Wednesday, the Michigan Supreme Court held in a 5-1 opinion that the odor of marijuana alone isn’t a sufficient reason for police to conduct a warrantless search of a car. In 2018, the possession and use of small amounts of marijuana by people who are at least 21 years old became legal. However, the law specifies that marijuana cannot be used while operating a vehicle.

In the opinion, Justice Megan Cavanagh notes that “the smell of marijuana might just as likely indicate that the person is in possession of a legal amount of marijuana, recently used marijuana legally, or was simply in the presence of someone else who used marijuana” and that the smell “no longer constitutes probable cause sufficient to support a search for contraband.”

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More on Units of Prosecution

Author’s Note: The Court of Appeals withdrew the State v. Watlington decision—on which this post is partially based—on April 7, 2025 and reissued the decision on April 16, 2025. The relevant section of this post has been modified from its original.

It has long been held that the allowable unit of prosecution for an offense is within the discretion of the legislature. See, e.g., Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81 (1955).  When the legislature does not clearly express legislative intent, the court must determine the allowable unit of prosecution. State v. Smith, 323 N.C. 439 (1988).

North Carolina courts have resolved issues related to units of prosecution in some contexts—including kidnapping, possession of firearms, and theft crimes—while there are questions that remain unanswered in other contexts. Some answers are clearer and more direct than others. I previously wrote a bulletin reviewing case law on permissible units of prosecution for certain offenses against the person, possession offenses, and theft offenses. Since then, the courts have specified units of prosecution for a few more offenses. This post provides more insight into those offenses and reviews the rule of lenity in navigating the unresolved.

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2024 Criminal Legislative Summaries

[Editor’s note: The legislative summaries linked in this post were updated on December 12, 2024, to reflect legislation enacted after this post first appeared.] Looking for some interesting topics to discuss over Thanksgiving dinner? The criminal summaries for this legislative session are now available and can be accessed here.

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News Roundup

A 23-year-old NC State University student was charged with felony assault last Friday after a week-long flurry of rush-hour shootings along I-40 and near I-440. Andrew Graney’s arrest came after Raleigh police scrambled to find the shooter who fired into eight cars and four houses, all in southwest Raleigh along I-40 between last Monday and Thursday. Raleigh Police Chief announced Thursday two “persons of interest” were detained Thursday afternoon. The second person detained was released and not charged.

Police found Graney after surveillance camera captured footage of a gray Hyundai Sonata at the scene of one of the residences hit by gunfire. Search warrants showed police seized a laptop computer, a .45-caliber Llama handgun and case with live ammunition, spent shell casings, and a box of ammunition from Graney’s home and car. Graney faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and discharging a weapon into an occupied dwelling or vehicle. He is being held without bond in the Wake County jail.

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Shifting the Landscape for the Domestic Violence 48-Hour Rule?

The “48-hour rule,” as it is known in domestic violence cases, has been covered on this blog numerous times over the years (see here, here, and here). The rule shifts the responsibility of setting conditions of pretrial release from magistrates to judges in certain cases involving allegations of domestic violence. The rule is set out in G.S. 15A-534.1, which provides that a judge—rather than a magistrate—must set a defendant’s pretrial release conditions during the first forty-eight hours after arrest for certain offenses.

Judicial officials and practitioners who handle criminal domestic violence cases should be familiar with both the statute and the long-standing ruling in State v. Thompson, 349 N.C. 483 (1998), that required dismissal of charges where G.S. 15A-534.1 was violated. Last year, the court of appeals decided State v. Tucker, 291 N.C. App. 379 (2023), which takes a different approach to determining the outcome of a domestic violence case that involves a 48-hour violation. This brief post details the facts of both cases and what Tucker suggests for domestic violence cases moving forward.

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News Roundup

Our hearts are with our clients and others who have been affected by Hurricane Helene. Expertise among faculty and staff of the School of Government may be valuable to local governments in the aftermath. That expertise list can be accessed here. Additionally, the School has an Emergency Management website available, which lists various state and federal resources for local governments impacted by Hurricane Helene. More on the Chief Justice’s Emergency Order can be found in this blog, posted earlier this week.

Keep reading for your weekly dose of criminal law news.

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Violation of Conditions Before Release

I recently taught a session at the magistrates’ conference about arrestable conditions of pretrial release. The session sparked a lot of discussion about the law surrounding pretrial conditions for in-custody defendants. It is well understood that when a defendant violates pretrial release conditions after being released from custody, the law allows several mechanisms for enforcement, including revocation of pretrial release, arrest of the defendant, and the setting of new, potentially stricter conditions of pretrial release. What’s less clear is (1) whether or not conditions of release are enforceable if a defendant has not yet been released, and (2) if they are, what tools judicial officials have for enforcement. This post addresses these questions. 

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News Roundup

Verizon Wireless is facing a lawsuit after a man claiming to be a detective with the Cary Police Department was arrested for stalking. Last year, Robert Glauner, who is a resident of New Mexico, sent Verizon Wireless a fake search warrant demanding phone records from a Cary woman. He falsely claimed that the woman was a homicide suspect, but it was later revealed that she was someone he was stalking after connecting with her online.

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Legislative Amendments to Larceny Laws

Sticky-fingered Sam goes to the local shoe store to purchase a new pair of shoes. The last pair of shoes in her size are priced at $150. Deciding that these are too expensive, Sam removes a sticker from a box of shoes on the clearance shelf priced at $30 and places the sticker on the box of the shoes she wants. Sam takes the $150 shoes to the register with the $30 sticker on them, pays the lower price, and leaves. Has Sam committed a larceny? Has Sam committed the crime of larceny from a merchant under G.S. 14-72.11?

Sam’s acts do constitute larceny and are similar to the acts of the defendant in State vs. Hill, 291 N.C. App. 633 (2023). However, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that a defendant’s use of a price label sticker from another product did not represent larceny by product code (a form of larceny from a merchant) under G.S. 14-72.11(3). The court acknowledged that there is another larceny statute that would have been more appropriate for this circumstance. In response to Hill, the North Carolina General Assembly has amended the laws related to larceny and retail theft to bring more clarity about its scope. This post discusses the holding in State v. Hill and examines the newly amended laws applicable to these specific types of larceny.

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