A UNC School of Government Blog
The Court of Appeals released a number of opinions yesterday. Bob Farb will undoubtedly release his inimitable summaries shortly — to sign up to receive the summaries by email, go here — but I wanted to call attention to one case right away, as it should be of interest to officers, prosecutors, and defense lawyers … Read more
The Sixth Circuit, sitting en banc, recently decided a very interesting Miranda case. Garner v. Mitchell, available here, is a capital case. The defendant stole a woman’s purse, took a taxi to her house, robbed it, and set it on fire to conceal his fingerprints, killing five of the six children who were sleeping in … Read more
According to a News and Observer story available here, MySpace has provided the Attorney General’s office with a list of 2,116 registered North Carolina sex offenders who were on MySpace. (You can read more about this in the AG’s press release, here.) The SBI has shared the list with all 100 sheriffs, and the SBI’s … Read more
A couple of sessions ago, the General Assembly enacted G.S. 15A-211, which requires that custodial interrogations in homicide cases be recorded. The idea is to “eliminate disputes about interrogations,” id., and particularly, to prevent and record any coercion by law enforcement that might result in a false confession, and to prevent false claims of coercion. … Read more
I am teaching today, so I only have time for a quick post on a subject that crops up from time to time: how can the state compel access to documents it wants or needs to review during a criminal investigation? In the federal system, the grand jury can subpoena documents in its investigative capacity, … Read more
The News and Observer ran a story today about a piece of proposed legislation that would allow any law enforcement officer to search any probationer, for any reason, at any time. The story is here, and the proposed legislation itself is available here. In essence, it would remove G.S. 15A-1343(b1)(7), which gives judges the option … Read more
Several days ago, I wrote a post about Herring v. United States and whether it is merely the first step in a significant narrowing of the exclusionary rule. It’s an important issue — so important, in fact, that the New York Times ran a story on it Friday. The story is an interesting read, tracing … Read more
Nearly 90% of American adults have cell phones. When one of those cell phone users is arrested, may police search their mobile phone incident to arrest? The Fourth Circuit recently answered that question in the affimative. See United States v. Murphy, __ F.3d __, 2009 WL 94268 (4th Cir. Jan. 15, 2009). The defendant in … Read more
Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court decided Herring v. United States, no. 07-513, a case that raises interesting questions about the future of the exclusionary rule. An officer learned that the eventual defendant, Herring, was at the impound lot, retrieving items from his impounded truck. The officer was apparently familiar with Herring, and … Read more