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NC Supreme Court Weighs in on State v. Terrell and Private Search Doctrine

The North Carolina Supreme Court held in State v. Terrell, _­_ N.C. __ (Aug. 16, 2019), that a private party’s limited search of a defendant’s thumb drive did not frustrate the defendant’s legitimate expectation of privacy in the entire contents of the electronic storage device. The detective who searched on the heels of the private party could not be virtually certain that he would find nothing else of significance on the device or that his search would do no more than corroborate what the private searcher had told him. Thus, the court concluded that the detective could not lawfully search additional folders on the thumb drive without a warrant after the private party turned the device over to law enforcement.

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Raise the Age: Modifications and Training Opportunities

Session Law 2019-186, enacted on August 1, 2019, put the finishing touches on the new law that will raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction in North Carolina beginning on December 1, 2019. The modifications include clarification on which offense will remain outside of juvenile court jurisdiction, an expanded timeline for probable cause hearings in some instances, and a new option to remand some cases that have been transferred to superior court back to district court for juvenile processing. If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed or confused by raise the age, fear not. A raise the age workshop is coming to an area near you this fall. Stick with me to the end of this blog and you will find links to get to the registration page.

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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.

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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.

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Trapped but not Entrapped? State v. Keller

Back in May, a divided Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling that the defendant was not entitled to a jury instruction on entrapment in an online solicitation of a minor case. Entrapment isn’t exactly a common defense (as Jeff noted here). When it comes up, it’s often in drug cases, but it can also arise in computer solicitation cases where law enforcement officers pretend to be underage. State v. Keller, ___ N.C. App. ___, 828 S.E.2d 578 (May 21, 2019), review allowed, ___ N.C. ___ (August 14, 2019), is an example of such a case and appears to be the second reported decision dealing directly with the defense in this context, so I wanted to flag it for readers. Fair warning, this post recounts some of the sexually graphic discussions at issue in the case.

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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. 

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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.

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