North Carolina Criminal Law

Last week, I posted about the second look doctrine. (You can read that post here.) Recall that the basic idea is that if the police have custody of an object […]

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On June 1, 2010, the N.C. Court of Appeals applied Arizona v. Gant in State v. Johnson and held that the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when the police […]

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Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court decided Berghuis v. Thompkins, an important Miranda case. (There are other issues in the case, too, but this post will focus on the Miranda […]

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Consider the following scenario. The police arrest Sam Suspect and charge him with murdering his wife, Vicky Victim. The arrest is based on a statement from Frank Friend, one of […]

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The News and Observer reports today on “a proposal to collect DNA from suspects when they are arrested for felonies or violent crimes.” The bill in question is H1403, and […]

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Yesterday, I noted that the public safety exception to Miranda has been invoked in two recent terrorism cases to justify delaying the administration of Miranda warnings. A commenter correctly identified […]

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As everyone knows, a car bomb was recently found, and defused, in New York City. The New York Times summarizes the basic facts as follows: A crude car bomb made […]

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The scope of a suspect’s consent to search is determined objectively, by “what . . . the typical reasonable person [would] have understood by the exchange between the officer and […]

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The court of appeals issued several opinions yesterday. Among the most interesting is State v. Hopper, a case that addresses when an officer’s mistaken beliefs can support an investigative stop. […]

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The United States Supreme Court has decided two Miranda cases in the past two days. The prosecution won both cases. Tuesday, the Court decided Florida v. Powell. In Powell, the […]

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