Reuters reported this week that Yahoo “secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers’ incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials.” Reuters says that the government sent Yahoo a classified request to search the email accounts, likely under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The scope of the surveillance is unprecedented and involved “hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts.” The revelation comes just a month after the company announced that state-sponsored hackers stole information from 500 million Yahoo accounts in 2014. Change those passwords and keep reading for more news.
North Carolina’s Voting Restriction for Felons
Almost all states place some limitation on felons’ right to vote. Those limitations—which can be traced from ancient political traditions of “civil death” for certain crimes to more recent history in the post-Reconstruction United States—vary widely from state to state. They are sometimes controversial. For example, litigation involving Virginia’s restriction was mentioned in the July 29 News Roundup, with a follow-up on the ensuing executive action from the Washington Post here. Politics aside, today’s post covers some of the technical contours of North Carolina’s voting law for felons.
Caught on Camera
Surveillance camera footage of crime scenes often helps law enforcement officers identify an unknown perpetrator. This kind of footage can be equally powerful at trial, convincing jurors that the person depicted in the video is the defendant in the courtroom. There are foundational requirements that the State must satisfy for the display or admission of such evidence, and the state’s appellate courts have reviewed them in a handful of recent cases.
Self-Defense Provides Immunity from Criminal Liability
So say two statutes enacted by the General Assembly in 2011 as part of its revision of North Carolina’s self-defense law. G.S. 14-51.2(e) and G.S. 14-51.3(b) both state that a person who uses force as permitted by those statutes—in defense of home, workplace, and vehicle under the first statute and in defense of self or others under the second statute—“is justified in using such force and is immune from civil or criminal liability for the use of such force . . . .” What does this protection mean in criminal cases? No North Carolina appellate cases have addressed the self-defense immunity provision. This blog post addresses possible implications.
Probable Cause and Search Warrants for Cell Phones
Law enforcement officers often seek search warrants for suspects’ cell phones. When they do, judicial officials must determine what sort of evidence is needed to support the issuance of a warrant. Many people have their phones with them at all times, and use their phones to document and discuss every aspect of their daily activities. Does that mean that when an officer has probable cause to believe that a suspect committed a crime, the officer automatically has probable cause to search the suspect’s cell phone for evidence of the crime? Or does the officer need a more specific nexus between the crime and the phone?
News Roundup
The officer-involved shooting of Keith Lamont Scott and the associated protests in Charlotte continue to be in the local and national news. Mecklenburg County Public Defender Kevin Tully gave his view on the unrest in Charlotte late last week on NPR’s All Things Considered. The Charlotte Observer reports that the Charlotte Police Department has announced that it will “reverse course and be more open about releasing videos of police shootings to victims’ families and the public.” The move comes after the department was reluctant to release footage of the Scott shooting in the days immediately following the incident. The Observer report notes that a new state law regarding law enforcement recordings, S.L. 2016-88, goes into effect on Saturday. As the Observer reports, the new law is generating controversy; some say it reduces law enforcement transparency and accountability while others view it as an improvement over the current patchwork of local policies regarding recordings. Keep reading for more news.
Unlawful Racing of Motor Vehicles
When I think of unlawful racing, scenes from old movies come to mind. I see guys (more specifically, James Dean and John Travolta) in white t-shirts and leather jackets behind the wheels of vintage Fords and Mercurys. Unfortunately, however, unlawful racing has not been relegated to the past. There were nearly 500 charges for unlawful speed competition in North Carolina last year, a misdemeanor offense that can result in the revocation of a person’s driver’s license as well as the seizure of the motor vehicle driven—not to mention serious injury or death.
An Officer’s Reasonable Mistake of Law and Recent Court of Appeals Ruling
The United States Supreme Court in 2014 ruled in Heien v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 530 (affirming State v. Heien, 366 N.C. 271 (2012)), that an officer’s objectively reasonable mistake of law in making a stop or arrest is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Last week, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled in State v. Eldridge (September 20, 2016), that officer’s mistake of law when making a stop of a vehicle was not objectively reasonable based on the facts in that case. The Eldridge ruling is the subject of this post.
Ordering Occupants Out of Their Vehicles — And into Officers’ Cruisers
May an officer, during a traffic stop, order an occupant out of the stopped vehicle? Into the officer’s vehicle? The law on this question has become unsettled.