North Carolina Criminal Law

I’ve recently been asked by several people whether it is lawful to require officers to issue a certain number of citations, or to make a certain number of arrests, per […]

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We’ll start with a pop quiz: A police officer sees that the right brake light of a vehicle fails to illuminate when the driver applies brakes while driving down a […]

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Can a police officer order a suspect to empty his or her pockets during a Terry stop? The New York Times reports on claims that New York officers do so […]

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From time to time, an officer from another state wants to get medical records from a North Carolina hospital. For example, a South Carolina officer may want the medical records […]

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I’ve written about traffic stops at some length, in this paper. One of the areas in which the law is unsettled is the extent to which officers may engage in […]

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Suppose that a magistrate is asked to issue a search warrant for a particular residence. Based on the information presented to her by the applicant, the magistrate believes that there […]

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G.S. 20-141.4 sets forth six offenses based upon the unlawful killing or injuring of another during the commission of a motor vehicle offense.  All but one of these death or […]

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Virtually all courts interpreted Belton v. New York, 453 U.S. 454 (1981), to authorize a law enforcement officer to search the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle incident to the […]

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As I noted last week, the Supreme Court of the United States just decided J.D.B. v. North Carolina, an important Miranda case. I blogged about the case here when it […]

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If I were to compile guidance for law enforcement officers and judges on “what not to do” in an impaired driving case, I’d be sure to include excerpts from two […]

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