North Carolina Criminal Law

May an officer prolong a routine traffic stop for four and a half minutes to allow a drug dog to sniff the exterior of the vehicle–even if the officer lacks […]

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If you have an iPhone, an iPad, or an iPod touch, you can now download the School of Government’s first smartphone app, a guide to the law of search and […]

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The Fourth Circuit recently decided United States v. Sowards, an interesting case about a traffic stop. The case arose when an experienced traffic enforcement officer stopped the defendant on I-77 […]

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Drunk drivers have difficulty driving in a straight line. Therefore, police officers frequently stop drivers who are weaving, suspecting them of impaired driving. Until very recently, it seemed that the […]

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I’m just getting back to work after a leave of absence, and I’m still getting caught up on some major cases that were decided while I was out. One such […]

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Jeff has written before about whether a traffic stop may be prolonged to allow time for a drug-sniffing dog to arrive on the scene and sniff about the car (which […]

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Yesterday, I wrote about a pair of recent cases about weaving within a lane of travel. Today, I want to mention another pair of recent cases related to automobiles. Last […]

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Two recent cases from the court of appeals have added to our state’s weaving jurisprudence. One of them is a pretty big deal, as I’ll explain below. But first, the […]

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Under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), before an officer may begin a custodial interrogation of a suspect, the officer must advise the suspect of certain rights, such as […]

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The Supreme Court of North Carolina recently decided State v. Mbacke, an important case about searches incident to arrest. I mentioned Mbacke briefly in this prior post, which noted that […]

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