Continuing our new practice of posting North Carolina appellate court case summaries to the blog, this post provides summaries of the North Carolina Court of Appeals opinions published on August 6, 2019.
Fundamental Principles of Statutory Self-Defense
The common law right to use defensive force in North Carolina rests on three fundamental principles: necessity, proportionality, and fault. Ordinarily, when a person uses defensive force, the force must be reasonably necessary to prevent harm; the force must be proportional to the threatened harm; and the person using defensive force must not be at fault in the conflict. See John Rubin, The Law of Self-Defense § 2.1(b), at 14–15 (UNC School of Government, 1996). North Carolina’s new statutes on defensive force continue to rely on these principles. As under the common law, the statutes do not always refer to these principles in describing the circumstances in which a person may use defensive force. But, as this post is intended to show, the basic principles of necessity, proportionality, and fault remain central to the statutory rights.
“Updating” a Criminal Summons
What happens when a magistrate issues a criminal summons for a defendant but the defendant can’t be located until after the court date on the summons has passed? For example, suppose that Magistrate Morales issues a criminal summons on January 1. The summons orders Defendant Daniels to come to court on February 1 to answer a charge of misdemeanor larceny of his neighbor’s lawnmower. No law enforcement officer is able to locate and serve Daniels until February 14, when Officer Oxendine spots Daniels enjoying a Valentine’s Day meal out with his girlfriend. What’s the officer supposed to do?
News Roundup
Several people were charged with crimes this week in connection with the alleged absentee ballot fraud scheme that launched North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District race into the national political spotlight earlier this year. According to the News & Observer, McCrae Dowless was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice and one count each of conspiracy to obstruct justice, illegal possession of an absentee ballot, perjury, and solicitation to commit perjury. Five other people were indicted on related charges. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said the investigation was ongoing and that it was premature to say whether any additional charges would be filed. Keep reading for more news.
Sex Offender Registration for Out-of-State Offenses
There are about 25,000 people on North Carolina’s sex offender registry. Over 8,000 of them are registered for crimes committed in other states or in federal court. There are issues.
Pole Cameras after Carpenter
I recently traveled to New York City to do some sight-seeing. I noticed that I wasn’t the only one doing the looking. The New York Police Department has mounted security cameras on poles all over Manhattan. They are well-marked and conspicuous. Seeing them made me wonder about challenges to this kind of surveillance in light of the Supreme Court’s decision two terms ago in Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. ___, 138 S.Ct. 2206 (2018), holding that a person has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of his or her physical movements as captured through cell-site location information (CSLI). The court based its opinion in part on a person’s reasonable expectation that law enforcement will not constantly surveil his physical movements. Though video recorded by a law enforcement camera differs from CSLI in its scope and in the type of information collected, some have argued that the privacy interests identified in Carpenter also are implicated by the government’s use of pole-mounted surveillance cameras.
Geofencing Warrants
WRAL has several stories up about geofencing warrants. One major article is here. It describes a search warrant obtained by the Raleigh Police Department in a murder case. The warrant ordered “Google [to] hand over the locations of every [mobile] device within the confines of [a defined geographic area] during a specified time period.” In a nutshell, the police were trying to figure out who was near the scene of the crime when the murder took place and asked Google to comb its data banks to find out. This post is intended to start a conversation about warrants of this kind.
Drug Testing Equipment Isn’t Drug Paraphernalia Anymore
Effective immediately, there is a new exception to G.S. 90-113.22 (possession of drug paraphernalia) and G.S. 90-113.22A (possession of marijuana paraphernalia). Pursuant to S.L. 2019-159, it is “not unlawful” for a drug user to possess or use “testing equipment for identifying or analyzing the strength, effectiveness, or purity” of drugs, or for an “organization that promotes scientifically proven ways of mitigating health risks associated with drug use” to possess or distribute such equipment. Read on to find out what’s behind the change.
News Roundup
On Wednesday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller spent seven hours testifying to the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Though his testimony was highly anticipated and widely covered by the media, Mueller largely reiterated the substance of the report he delivered earlier this year – saying that it was clear that Russia did interfere in the election but that there was not sufficient evidence that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired in that effort, and that his office did not reach a conclusion about whether President Trump obstructed justice during the investigation. Keep reading for more news.