The domestic violence case against Carolina Panther Greg Hardy was dismissed this week. According to the Charlotte Observer, a principal reason was that the alleged victim, Hardy’s ex-girlfriend, refused to cooperate and avoided service of a subpoena. Prosecutors also told the judge that the alleged victim had reached a civil settlement with Hardy. To be clear, no one has said that the settlement agreement required the alleged victim not to cooperate. But could the agreement contain such a provision?
Jeff Welty
Combining Drug Quantities
I’ve recently been asked several variants of this question: If a suspect sells drugs to an undercover officer on multiple occasions over a few days or weeks, can the drug quantities involved in each sale be aggregated to reach the trafficking threshold? That led me to spend some time looking at the more general issue of when multiple caches of drugs can be combined. This post lays out the law.
News Roundup
The General Assembly is gearing up for the long session, and the AOC has a new lobbyist: former Rep. Tom Murry of Morrisville will be the AOC’s “chief legal counsel for governmental affairs,” according to this News and Observer story. Murry is a Republican and an attorney, and his main priority likely will be securing more resources for the courts.
News Roundup
This week saw several interesting developments at the United States Supreme Court, plus the videotaped arrest of a public defender in the hallway of a courthouse.
Updated Paper on Traffic Stops
I’ve recently updated my paper on traffic stops. As before, it covers stops from start to finish, including the legal standard for making a stop, the length of a stop, and investigative techniques that may be used during a stop. I may need to update it again after the Supreme Court decides United States v. … Read more
When Reasonable Suspicion Is Dispelled
A traffic stop is valid if it is supported by reasonable suspicion. During a valid traffic stop, an officer may demand the driver’s license and registration, may run a computer check based on those documents, and so on. But what if the reasonable suspicion supporting the stop dissipates soon after the stop is made?
New Limits on Forfeiture
On Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced major new limits on asset forfeiture. In a nutshell, he put a stop to the federal civil forfeiture of assets seized by state and local law enforcement and “adopted” under the Equitable Sharing program. The details are a little fuzzy, but this may be a very big deal in the world of forfeiture, for reasons I discuss below.
News Roundup
Last Friday, the Criminal Justice Section of the North Carolina Bar Association presented its annual awards for excellence in prosecution and criminal defense. The prosecutor award went to Assistant United States Attorney Sandra Hairston, who serves in the Middle District of North Carolina and who regularly outlawyered me when I was doing federal criminal defense work. The defense attorney award went to Mark Owens, Jr. of Greenville, who this NCBA press release describes as the “elder statesman” of the Pitt County bar. Congratulations to both winners.
Drug Dog Legal Update
North Carolina’s appellate courts have recently issued two important opinions on the use of drug dogs, and the United States Supreme Court has granted certiorari in another drug dog case. This post summarizes these recent developments.