Back in November of last year, I wrote about hemp and CBD laws here. I have been teaching quite a bit on the subject lately and wanted to follow up that post with an examination of how legal use of hemp products may affect marijuana prosecutions in North Carolina.
WRAL recently reported that “the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office . . . flew a drone over [private] property . . . to locate [stolen construction] equipment.” According to the story, the overflight may have been conducted without a warrant as “[t]here was no . . . warrant on file at the Johnston County Courthouse.” Can they do that?
The court of appeals just decided another case on the community caretaking doctrine. It’s the fourth published community caretaking case in the last five years, and there have been a couple of unpublished ones as well. The activity in the appellate division suggests that the doctrine is being invoked much more frequently in the trial courts. This post explains the new case and provides a quick refresher on the older ones.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled last week that city parking enforcement officers’ use of chalk to mark the tires of parked vehicles to track how long they have been parked is a Fourth Amendment search. And, on the facts before it, the court held that the city failed to show that the search was reasonable.
May an officer prolong a traffic stop to wait for a second officer to come to the scene? An officer may want another officer present to provide backup, or may need assistance from an officer who speaks Spanish, is proficient at administering Standardized Field Sobriety Tests, or is a certified Drug Recognition Expert. Under Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. __ (2015), a traffic stop may last no longer than necessary to complete the “mission” of the stop — addressing the traffic violation that prompted the stop while attending to officer safety. When waiting for another officer is part of the mission of the stop is a question with which courts across the country are grappling.
In a series of posts I’ve been discussing bail reform, including highlighting pilot programs underway in North Carolina. In 2018, I worked with stakeholders in North Carolina’s Judicial District 30B (Haywood and Jackson counties) to help them identify and implement a basket of pretrial reforms. One of those reforms involves a new citation in lieu of arrest program. This reform includes implementation of a law enforcement-approved tool for patrol officers to encourage the increased use of citations in lieu of arrest for certain misdemeanors, in the officer’s discretion. The tool is a Cite or Arrest Pocket Card. Although the overall 30B project was a collaborative, multi-stakeholder endeavor, only the law enforcement community participated in the creation of the Pocket Card. The content of the card is reproduced below; in reality it’s a bright blue laminated card, the same size as the Miranda Warnings card.
A bill has been introduced in the legislature that would allow for GPS tracking of domestic violence offenders. Has that been tried elsewhere? Would it be constitutional? Would it open the door to tracking other types of people? This post tackles those questions.
The court of appeals decided State v. Shelton, ___ N.C. App. ___ (2019) yesterday, determining that the evidence of the defendant’s impairment was sufficient when he took impairing drugs hours before crashing his vehicle into a pedestrian after his brakes failed. Two aspects of the case are of particular interest: (1) the court’s evaluation of the sufficiency of the evidence in a case where no one opined that the defendant was impaired; and (2) how the State obtained evidence that drugs remained in the defendant’s system in the first place.
When law enforcement officers execute a search warrant authorizing the search of a private residence, they may detain, while the search is carried out, any occupant they discover on the premises. Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692 (1981). Officers do not need individualized suspicion that such a person is engaged in criminal activity justify his or her detention. The person’s mere presence on the premises subject to the search is sufficient to justify the seizure under this categorical rule. Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93 (2005).
If a person leaves the immediate vicinity of the premises just before officers execute the warrant, the person may not be detained based on the search warrant alone. Instead, any such detention must be supported by reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. Bailey v. United States, 568 U.S. 186 (2013).
But what about a person who approaches a house while a warrant is being executed? Is that person an occupant who may be detained without particularized suspicion? The North Carolina Supreme Court recently considered that question in State v. Wilson, ___ N.C. ___, 821 S.E.2d 811 (2018).
During a Terry stop, an officer who has reasonable suspicion that a suspect is armed and dangerous may frisk the suspect and may confiscate any weapons that the officer finds. Does an officer have the same authority during a traffic stop? In other words, if an officer reasonably suspects that a driver is in possession of a gun, even lawfully, may the officer confiscate the gun for the duration of the stop as a safety precaution? What about during a consensual encounter between an officer and a pedestrian?