North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Jeff wrote earlier this week about roadside strip searches. Today’s post is about strip searches of arrestees as they are booked into the jail. The longstanding rule regarding searches of […]

The Court of Appeals just decided State v. Battle, a case about roadside strip searches. It’s an important case for judges, lawyers, and especially officers. A confidential and reliable informant […]

I’ve bumped into a couple recent cases in which law enforcement officers have requested consent to search a car and have received ambiguous responses. (For a discussion of when officers […]

When a law enforcement officer is entitled to search a computer for evidence, she typically is entitled to look at every file on the computer, at least briefly. That’s because […]

I’ve blogged before about G.S. 20-139.1(d1). When a DWI arrestee refuses to submit to a test for alcohol, that section allows “any law enforcement officer with probable cause” to “compel […]

From time to time, an officer or a magistrate asks how to respond when a defendant who is properly subject to fingerprinting under G.S. 15A-502 refuses to be fingerprinted. There […]

Earlier this week, the court of appeals decided State v. Simmons, a search and seizure case that should interest officers, lawyers, and judges. The facts are simple: an officer stopped […]

The North Carolina Supreme Court recently decided In re J.D.B., a close and interesting juvenile case. I mentioned it briefly here when it divided the court of appeals. It has […]

Note about holiday blogging schedule: Because I am certain that all of you are planning your holidays around this blog, I thought I’d mention that I’ll continue to post daily […]

The Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled that cell phones generally cannot be searched without a warrant incident to arrest. That court’s decision is here. The law in North Carolina appears […]