A UNC School of Government Blog
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 implications well beyond the juvenile context, which I’ll unpack at the end of this post. The basic facts are as follows: Chapel Hill police suspected … Read more
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 through the holidays, except for Christmas Eve and Christmas, and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Today’s post: The North Carolina Supreme Court recently … Read more
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 to be otherwise, as I’ve noted here and here. But reading the Ohio decision reminded me of a topic some colleagues and I were discussing … Read more
The court of appeals ruled this week in State v. Shockley that alcohol concentration readings from two of four attempted breath samples collected within 18 minutes of one another met the “consecutively administered tests” requirement for admissibility of a chemical analysis pursuant to former G.S. 20-139.1(b3). (As amended in 2006, the provision now requires “at … Read more
Update: Check out this post about a recent court of appeals case in this area. Original post: Most DWI cases involve breath tests for alcohol. But there are circumstances in which blood tests are administered. Most often, this happens when the defendant is injured in an accident and so cannot take a breath test. It … Read more
I have been asked several times about the validity of search warrants that authorize the police to search a particular place and “all persons on the premises.” It sounds as though such warrants are most often requested in drug cases. A number of courts across the country have ruled on the validity of these “all … Read more
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