The General Assembly recently amended the law that governs the release of body camera footage. This post explains the change.
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News Roundup
This week North Carolina was in the national news after Governor Roy Cooper vetoed a bill that would have required sheriffs to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests. The bill included a provision that would have made a sheriff’s refusal to cooperate with ICE a basis for removing the sheriff from office. Several sheriffs around the state, including those in Buncombe, Mecklenburg, and Wake counties, have a policy of not honoring ICE detainer requests. As this Charlotte Observer report indicates, political controversy over the legislation continues following the veto, with Cooper saying that it uses “fear to divide North Carolinians” and Republican lawmakers saying that Cooper irresponsibly vetoed a common sense bill. Keep reading for more news.
When a Person Sells Drugs Away from His or Her Home, Does that Provide Probable Cause to Search the Person’s Home?
The question in the title of this post is an oversimplified version of the issue addressed by the court of appeals last week in State v. Bailey, __ N.C. App. __, __ S.E.2d __, 2019 WL 3925864 (Aug. 20, 2019). But it isn’t oversimplified by much, and the appellate division may be inching closer to answering the question in the affirmative.
Case Summaries — North Carolina Court of Appeals
This post provides summaries of the opinions of the North Carolina Court of Appeals published on August 20, 2019.
Case Summaries – Supreme Court of North Carolina
This post provides summaries of the opinions of the Supreme Court of North Carolina published on August 16, 2019.
News Roundup
In a dramatic development in an already dramatic case, Jeffrey Epstein was found dead over the weekend of apparent suicide in the Manhattan jail where he was being detained prior to trial on sex trafficking charges. Epstein’s death has generated a tremendous amount of news, ranging from criticism of his supervision to conspiratorial speculation about whether he was murdered. It is being reported that two guards at his unit, one of whom wasn’t even a fully credentialed correctional officer, fell asleep and didn’t check on Epstein for several hours prior to his death. They later falsified records to cover up that lapse. Attorney General William Barr has ordered the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate Epstein death. Keep reading for more news.
Nonresident Registrants
In a previous post I wrote about the complexities of putting people on North Carolina’s sex offender registry for crimes committed in another state—including how a federal court found the lack of legal process for doing so unconstitutional, and how over half of the records I checked appeared to be incorrect. Today’s post considers the related issue of people on North Carolina’s registry who do not actually live in the state. Over 5,500 of the 25,000 people on North Carolina’s sex offender registry don’t reside here. Should they be on North Carolina’s registry at all? It’s not clear.
Venue Vexation
When you open a discussion by saying “I came across a really interesting venue issue the other day,” reactions typically range from “I doubt it” to “could we please talk about something else?”
But hear me out on this one — it’s a puzzler.
Shooting an Officer the Bird
Editor’s note: The opinion analyzed in this post was withdrawn shortly after publication and replaced with this opinion reaching the same outcome.
Last week, in State v. Ellis, __ N.C. App. __, __ S.E.2d __, 2019 WL 3559644 (N.C. Ct. App. Aug. 6, 2019), a divided panel of the court of appeals held that a trooper properly stopped a vehicle “after witnessing . . . a passenger in [the] vehicle . . . extend his middle finger in the trooper’s general direction.” The majority acknowledged that “there are a number of decisions from courts across the country [holding] that one cannot be held criminally liable for simply raising his middle finger at an officer.” Yet it ruled that the defendant’s conduct provided reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, namely, disorderly conduct. See generally G.S. 14-288.4(a)(2) (making it unlawful to make a gesture “intended and plainly likely to provoke violent retaliation”). Let’s take a closer look at Ellis.
News Roundup
The Winston-Salem Journal reports that nearly 150 people attended a candlelight vigil this week in honor of Julius Randolph Sampson Jr., who was shot and killed Tuesday at Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem where he worked. Sampson’s shooting death has attracted significant attention in Winston, as there is some indication that Sampson and the suspect in the shooting, Robert Anthony Granato, exchanged racial epithets during the incident, prompting questions from some about whether race was a motivating factor in the shooting. Winston-Salem Police Chief Catrina Thompson said in a news conference on Wednesday that investigators have not uncovered evidence suggesting that the shooting was racially motivated. The North Carolina NAACP has called for a full investigation into whether race was a factor in the shooting. Keep reading for more news.