North Carolina Criminal Law

Yesterday was Data Privacy Day, making this a good time to recap some recent developments in law enforcement access to email and other electronic communications. Data Privacy Day. You’re probably […]

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I’m eagerly awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling in Missouri v. McNeely. I want to know whether the exigency created by the dissipation of alcohol in the body, without more, permits […]

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The court of appeals just decided a case that’s important for officers, as well as lawyers and judges, to know about. The case is State v. Pasour, and it began […]

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I blogged previously about whether the concept of curtilage applies to multi-unit dwellings like duplexes and apartment buildings. It’s an interesting question, and the cases summarized in the prior post […]

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Last week, I wrote about the North Carolina Court of Appeals’ holding in State v. Smith, ___ N.C. App. ___, 729 S.E.2d 120 (2012), that a drug dog’s positive alert […]

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Last August, the court of appeals in State v. Smith, ___ N.C. App. ___, 729 S.E.2d 120, temp. stay granted, __ N.C. __, 731 S.E.2d 179 (mem.) (2012), decided an […]

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I’ve updated my paper on traffic stops, which a fair number of people have said they found useful. It covers reasonable suspicion, the scope of a stop, termination of a […]

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A good rule of thumb is that most interesting impaired driving appeals come from Pitt County. Whether that is related to ECU’s ranking as a top five “party school,” I […]

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Can an officer’s visual estimate of a vehicle’s speed, uncorroborated by radar, pacing, or other techniques, support a speeding stop? The Fourth Circuit has been whipsawing back and forth on […]

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The most famous footnote in all the world is generally acknowledged to be footnote 4 in United States v. Carolene Products Company, 304 U.S. 144 (1938). That footnote introduced to […]

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