North Carolina Criminal Law

Imagine that someone breaks into your house and steals something. Let’s say it’s a laptop. A week later, you see the laptop in a pawn shop. You want it back, […]

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A recent conversation reminded me about a question I’ve received several times over the years: On a habitual felon indictment, what should be listed as the offense date? The two […]

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The facts. A detective with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department writes a plan for a checkpoint to be conducted later in the evening. The plan states that the checkpoint will be […]

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[Author’s Note:  This post has been substantively edited to make corrections in response to helpful comments from readers.] A person generally may not lawfully be arrested unless there is probable […]

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The Fourth Amendment protects the home as well as its curtilage, which is defined as the area immediately surrounding the home and associated with it. Recently, the North Carolina Supreme […]

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Myra Lynne Combs beat her DWI charges in court. The trial court held that the officer who stopped her didn’t have a lawful reason to do so. So the trial […]

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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 […]

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I previously wrote (here) about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent cert grant in Ohio v. Clark, a case in which the Court will decide whether a three-year-old child’s statements to […]

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Most people stopped on suspicion of impaired driving would rather avoid the trip to the police station. Some suspects attempt to dispel officers’ suspicions by answering questions about whether they have been […]

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Many criminal defense lawyers are reluctant to give incarcerated clients copies of discovery materials. Lawyers may worry that the materials will be stolen by other inmates, who will then use […]

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