A UNC School of Government Blog
Jeff Welty 
Virtually all courts interpreted Belton v. New York, 453 U.S. 454 (1981), to authorize a law enforcement officer to search the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle incident to the arrest of any recent occupant of the vehicle. Then the Supreme Court decided Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. __ (2009), discussed here, among other places. … Read more
As I noted last week, the Supreme Court of the United States just decided J.D.B. v. North Carolina, an important Miranda case. I blogged about the case here when it was decided by the state supreme court, and it’s worth taking another look at it now. I previously summarized the facts as follows: Chapel Hill … Read more
It isn’t often that a criminal law decision by the United States Supreme Court is an above-the-fold front page story in the News and Observer, but that’s the situation today. The case in question is J.D.B. v. North Carolina, and while I plan to blog about it in detail on Monday, the short version is … Read more
Yesterday, in United States v. Portillo-Munoz, the Fifth Circuit held that illegal immigrants do not have Second Amendment rights. The defendant in the case was charged with being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5). He argued that the statute was unconstitutional, but the court concluded that … Read more
I was walking my dog this weekend when a neighbor stopped me for one of those “hey, you’re a lawyer” conversations that always seems to involve an area of law about which I know nothing. Except this time, the question was about criminal law. The specific question was this: John Edwards claims that the money … Read more
The General Assembly continues to move swiftly. Its budget is on the Governor’s desk, so legislators have turned their attention to other matters. For example, S 756, which would eliminate unsecured bond as a possible condition of release, and which would impose several limitations on pretrial release programs, passed the Senate and has moved to … Read more
The Court of Appeals released several criminal law opinions yesterday. One that caught my eye was State v. Merrell, __ N.C. App. __ (2011). In a nutshell, the defendant was an alcoholic who lived with his sister and her family. He began sexually abusing his niece, in a variety of ways, when she was nine. … Read more
The last batch of opinions from the court of appeals included a really interesting constructive possession case.The facts of State v. Slaughter, __ N.C. App. __ (2011), are as follows. Officers executed a search warrant at a mobile home. The defendant did not live in the home but was present at the time of the … Read more
According to the News and Observer, plea negotiations regarding former Senator John Edwards have not resulted in an agreement, and Edwards “was indicted today [editor’s note: literally, an hour or so ago] on charges of conspiracy and false statements and campaign law violations.” The paper previously ran a detailed analysis of some of the legal … Read more
I wrote a paper about motor vehicle checkpoints last year. It’s available here. Once in a while, I get asked about so-called ruse checkpoints, a subject that I didn’t address in the paper. A typical ruse checkpoint might work as follows. Officers deploy large, flashing temporary signs on a divided highway that say “drug checkpoint … Read more