North Carolina Criminal Law

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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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