A UNC School of Government Blog
The court of appeals issued a batch of opinions yesterday. Among them is State v. Washburn, a drug dog case. An extremely compressed summary of Washburn is that an informant told the police that the defendant was a drug dealer and kept drugs at his house and at a storage unit. Based on the tip, … Read more
As I mentioned last week, I have a new publication entitled Prosecution and Law Enforcement Access to Information about Electronic Communications. It’s meant to be useful on a range of topics, from phone records and wiretapping, but the most detailed discussion concerns email, text messages, and other stored electronic communications. The very, very simplified version … Read more
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m especially interested in the law regarding electronic communications and electronic evidence. (For one thing, it allows me to look at web sites like Gizmodo and claim that I’m working.) I’ve previously published a paper on law enforcement use of GPS tracking devices, as well as several blog posts about electronic … Read more
I noted yesterday that a law enforcement officer conducting a traffic stop may order the driver and any passengers out of the vehicle. It’s also reasonably clear that the officer can order the vehicle’s occupants to remain in the vehicle. Robert L. Farb, Arrest, Search, and Investigation in North Carolina 30 & n.160 (collecting cases). … Read more
As one eminent Fourth Amendment scholar has observed, “[i]n recent years more Fourth Amendment battles have been fought about police activities incident to . . . what the courts call a ‘routine traffic stop’ than in any other context.” 4 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 9.3 (4th ed. 2004). Because so many criminal … Read more
by School of Government faculty member Michael Crowell In the last couple of years North Carolina has seen several high profile cases in which the sealing of a search warrant became an issue. One was the investigation of the murder of Nancy Cooper in Cary, and it led to last week’s North Carolina Court of … Read more
Computers and electronic storage media can hold massive quantities of data. At approximately 30,000 pages per gigabyte, a low-end laptop computer with a 250 gigabyte hard drive can store the equivalent of more than 7 million pages of paper. That’s thousands of bankers’ boxes worth, or as many pages as you’d find at a branch … Read more
The Associated Press just published this story about a federal program in Idaho and Texas in which officers are trained to draw blood from people suspected of impaired driving. The notion is that blood draws counter the evidence lost as a result of breath test refusals, thereby resulting in fewer trials, more convictions and greater … Read more
The court of appeals released a batch of opinions yesterday. Several are interesting and important, and there were an unusually large number of opinions in favor of defendants, including some in very serious cases. One of those is State v. Carter, the court’s first stab at applying Arizona v. Gant — a case about which … Read more
I’m still not done with the last round of court of appeals and North Carolina Supreme Court opinions, but I found a little gem in one of the high court’s opinions. For the first time, the state supreme court has addressed the search of a cell phone incident to arrest. I’ve blogged about this issue … Read more