A UNC School of Government Blog
You don’t have to attend basic law enforcement training to identify a potential impaired driver. Plenty of folks without police training could roll off a list of tell-tale signs, including excessive weaving, driving without headlights, and driving with the windows down in cold weather, particular when those signs are observed in the evening hours in … Read more
Last week the United States Supreme Court in Fernandez v. California (February 25, 2014) clarified an issue left open in its ruling in Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103 (2006): the validity of a consent search by a residential occupant after a co-occupant has previously objected to a search but is no longer physically present … Read more
I’ve had several questions lately concerning search warrants for meth labs. The basic issue is whether officers who find hazardous chemicals and other dangerous items may destroy them right away, before the defendant has a chance to examine and test them. Related questions include whether a judge has the power to authorize such destruction when … Read more
I’ve just completed a revision of my paper on the law of traffic stops. It covers both when an officer may make a stop and what an officer may do in the course of the stop. It’s written for judges, lawyers, and officers, and is available here for free. As always, I welcome feedback on … Read more
CNET is reporting that an Ohio man went to a movie theater wearing Google Glass. Halfway through Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, an FBI agent approached him, flashed a badge, took his Google Glass, and ordered him out of the theater. Several agents questioned the man about whether he was recording the film, which the man … Read more
The court of appeals decided a case today concerning a fact pattern that arises frequently in drug cases. State v. McKinney began when an officer received a “citizen complaint” about “heavy traffic in and out of” a particular apartment, with the visitors staying only a short time. The citizen stated that he or she had … Read more
Law enforcement officers are making more and more use of video surveillance cameras, often mounted on utility poles. Sometimes these cameras are focused on streets or parks, as discussed in this Fayetteville Observer article. Sometimes they are focused on suspects’ residences. (Sometimes, hidden cameras are installed inside residences or other private areas, but such uses … Read more
The court of appeals decided its first post-Missouri v. McNeely alcohol exigency case yesterday. The court in State v. Dahlquist determined that the four to five hours that the arresting officer estimated would have elapsed had he first traveled to the intake center at the jail to obtain a search warrant and then taken the … Read more
In United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. __ (2012), and Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. __ (2013), the Supreme Court announced a new, or perhaps revived an old, understanding of the Fourth Amendment that is closely tied to property rights and trespass. In Jones, the Court ruled that attaching a GPS tracking device to a … Read more
More and more criminal investigations involve searches of computers and other digital devices. It is sometimes difficult to apply long-established search and seizure law to the practical realities of digital investigations. One example of this phenomenon concerns the preparation of the return and the inventory after the execution of a search warrant, a topic of … Read more