North Carolina Criminal Law

Knock and talks are a common, useful, and sometimes controversial law enforcement tool. I thought that I would put together a post that summarizes the principal legal issues that they […]

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I’ve blogged before about whether law enforcement officers may go to a side door, or the back door, when attempting to conduct a knock-and-talk. The court of appeals just decided […]

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A Fourth Amendment seizure does not occur when an officer turns on her patrol vehicle’s lights and siren to signal for a vehicle to stop. Instead, it occurs when a […]

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A week ago today, the Supreme Court of the United States resolved a circuit split and ruled that a person driving a rental car, but not listed on the rental […]

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I recently summarized a Fourth Circuit traffic stop case arising out of western North Carolina, U.S. v. Bowman, 884 F.3d 200 (4th Cir. 2018). It’s an interesting case in its […]

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Last week, the FBI executed a search warrant at the office of Michael Cohen, a lawyer who has worked for President Trump. The Washington Post reports that Cohen is being […]

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An officer normally needs a search warrant to search a residence, unless an exception to the warrant requirement applies. That’s because residences are protected by a reasonable expectation of privacy […]

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The Fourth Amendment states in part that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the […]

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Shea blogged last week about State v. Terrell, a case in which the defendant’s girlfriend saw on one of the defendant’s USB drives an “image of [the girlfriend’s] nine-year-old granddaughter sleeping […]

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Author’s note:  The North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. Terrell, ___ N.C. ___, 831 S.E.2d 17 (Aug. 16, 2019), affirmed the court of appeals judgment discussed below. The state […]

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