Latest posts in category Procedure on North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

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 Court in State v. Grice, 2015 WL 304075 (Jan. 23, 2015), was confronted with a Fourth Amendment issue involving the curtilage. The court held, reversing the court of appeals, ___ N.C. App. ___, 733 S.E.2d 354 (2012), that officers who were validly on the curtilage of a residence to conduct a knock and talk did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they saw marijuana plants 15 yards away on the curtilage and warrantlessly seized them.

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 court suppressed all the evidence resulting from the stop, and the State dismissed the charges. But Combs’ license was revoked for a year anyway based on her refusal to submit to a breath test after she was arrested. Combs didn’t think that was right, so she took her case to the state court of appeals.

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.

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 his preschool teachers are testimonial. Hiding in plain sight in that case is an issue as interesting as the Crawford question that the Court will decide. In Clark, the Ohio Supreme Court held that the child’s statements to his teachers identifying the defendant as the perpetrator were testimonial. It further held that the trial court violated the defendant’s confrontation clause rights when it admitted the child’s out of court statements to his teachers at trial, after finding the child—L.P. —incompetent to testify. L.P. was found to be incompetent six months after uttering the statements at issue.

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 drinking and how much they’ve had to drink.  Others perform field sobriety tests. A few cut right to the chase, demanding that officers transport them immediately to the station for breath testing. That way, the person who is not impaired by alcohol can resolve the encounter without the indignity–and the record–that accompanies arrest.

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 the information in the materials to bolster false claims that the defendant confessed to them. And lawyers may believe that certain clients simply should not have access to certain materials, such as the addresses and phone numbers of witnesses or alleged victims. But what if a client insists on having a copy of discovery materials? A new State Bar ethics opinion addresses this issue.

As of December 1, 2014, North Carolina criminal defendants may waive their right to a jury trial in superior court and instead opt for a bench trial. This is because of the state constitutional amendment that voters approved this fall. (I wrote about the amendment here.) But how exactly is waiver supposed to work?

Yesterday, the grand jury in St. Louis County, Missouri , declined to indict officer Darren Wilson in connection with the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Some commentators have criticized the decision of the local prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, to present all the evidence to the grand jury, rather than only evidence that would support an indictment. I don’t think that’s a fair criticism, for reasons I explain below.

The blog was dormant yesterday in honor of Veterans Day. Belated thanks to those who have served. [Editor’s note: Including Jamie, who was a captain in the Air Force before law school.]

This time last year saw the opening of North Carolina’s first veterans treatment court in Harnett County. The governor and other leaders attended the opening ceremony. A year later, the court is graduating its first class today. Other veterans courts are coming online across the state. Cumberland’s court gets underway this week, and others are planned in Durham, Buncombe, and other counties—primarily those that are home to the state’s larger VA medical centers.

Same sex marriage has been permitted in North Carolina for a couple of weeks. Shea blogged here about one potential criminal law implication: the possibility, discussed in a memorandum from the Administrative Office of the Courts, that magistrates could be charged criminally for refusing to marry same-sex couples. As noted in this recent news article, a number of magistrates have resigned as a result. But the issue I’ve been asked most about is how same-sex marriage relates to our domestic violence laws.