Recent blog posts

With experts predicting that this Fourth of July weekend will be one of the busiest travel weekends in history, the News Roundup has tips for staying safe and obeying the laws on North Carolina roads. The NCDOT wants North Carolinians to be aware that new provisions in the State’s motor vehicle laws will go into effect beginning today, July 1st. Notably, registered mopeds now are required to carry liability insurance, and a new late fee has gone into effect for vehicle owners who fail to pay their registration renewal by the expiration date. Motorists can avoid road rage by taking note of construction work that may affect travel lanes along the interstates and lead to frustrating delays. Finally, the DOT warns that celebrations can quickly go from festive to fatal if you choose to drive after drinking – law enforcement agencies across the state are participating in Operation Firecracker, a campaign to get drunk drivers off the road. Stay safe, stay free, and keep reading for more news.

May the judge sentencing a conviction now order that it run consecutively to sentences the defendant might get in the future?

The U.S. Supreme Court waded into the murky waters of implied consent law this term in Birchfield v. North Dakota. The opinion it issued last week clarified important aspects of the relationship between chemical testing for impairment and the Fourth Amendment, but failed to distill a coherent theory of implied consent. Here’s what we know after Birchfield:

• Warrantless breath testing of impaired driving suspects is permissible under the Fourth Amendment as a search incident to arrest. A person who refuses to submit to such testing may be subjected to sanctions ranging from license revocation to criminal prosecution.
• Warrantless blood testing of impaired driving suspects is not permissible under the Fourth Amendment as a search incident to arrest. Thus, a warrant or a suspect’s consent is required to conduct such testing. A person who refuses to submit to such testing may not be criminally prosecuted for that refusal.

G.S. 15A-245 provides that information other than that contained in a search warrant affidavit may not be considered by the issuing official in determining whether probable cause exists to issue the warrant unless the information is either recorded or contemporaneously summarized in the record or on the face of the warrant by the issuing official. This is commonly known as the “four corners” rule because the issuing official and later a judge at a suppression hearing may only consider information within the four corners of the search warrant (with the limited exception mentioned above). The issue does not arise often in appellate court opinions. However, it was involved in the June 21, 2016, North Carolina Court Appeals case of State v. Brown, available here, and is the subject of this post.

Technologists tell us that we are in the age of ubiquitous video. It seems that almost everything is being recorded. Naturally, this means that more and more video recordings are being introduced in court. A recent decision by the court of appeals is a helpful reminder of the two primary methods of authenticating video.

Last week the North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced the creation of a new Youthful Offender Program and the elimination of the use of solitary confinement for offenders under the age of 18 who are confined in adult facilities.  An article from the News and Observer indicates that W. David Guice, Commissioner of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice, has said that solitary confinement doesn’t result in positive behavioral change and that prison officials have been reducing its use even with adult inmates.  The mission of the Youthful Offender Program, which will be operated at Foothills Correctional Institution, is to “identify criminogenic risks and needs, and address those areas in order to promote public safety and enhance youth outcomes through education, behavioral, health treatment, life skills, and family/community reunification services.”  Keep reading for more news.

Today’s post is an update to the sex offender registration and monitoring flow chart. (It’s really more of a cheat sheet than a flow chart, but after seven years of calling it a flow chart—the first version appeared in 2009—I’m going to stick with it.)

No legislative session would be complete without amendments to the state’s DWI laws. The 2016 short session upholds this tradition by amending the procedures that govern the admissibility of chemical analyses in impaired driving trials in district and superior court.

Summer is here and everyone is feeling excited about fair cross-section claims. Or at least I am after hearing an enlightening presentation about them, described below.

On TV and in the movies, arrestees are entitled to one phone call upon arrest. In real life, the situation is more complicated.