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Does the law regarding motor vehicle seizure when a person is charged with felony speeding to elude arrest or an offense involving impaired driving apply to juveniles? If the case is subject to original juvenile jurisdiction, the answer is no. Read on to understand why that is and what to do if a seizure order is improperly issued.
This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on April 16, 2025. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present.
Three chapters in the criminal law section of the Superior Court Judges’ Benchbook recently have been updated. Among those chapters is Joinder and Severance, which addresses the joinder and severance of […]
This post summarizes published criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during March 2025. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit cases are available here.
A couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court decided Bondi v. VanDerStok, 604 U.S. __ (2025). It is an administrative law case, not a Second Amendment case, but folks interested in firearms law will still want to know about it. The media has generally described this case as allowing the ATF to ban “ghost guns,” which is not exactly wrong but also is not precise. Read on for more details.
A woman was babysitting a child near Great Bend, Kansas, when the child she was watching complained of a monster under the bed. Seeking to assuage the child’s fear, the babysitter checked under the bed only to find a man hiding there. After a tussle with the babysitter, the man left the home and evaded capture until the next day, when local deputies located and arrested him. The man had recently posted bond on charges of threat crimes, domestic violence, and violating a protective order. He is now being held on no bond and is facing burglary, aggravated assault, and child endangerment charges. The AP has the story, here. Read on for more criminal law news.
This post is about the recurring issue of the requirement for a court to make findings of “good cause shown and stated” to preserve its jurisdiction to act on an alleged probation violation after the case has expired. The appellate courts have vacated many probation revocations for a lack of the required findings. The few affirmed cases show how to do things properly. Turns out, it’s not a demanding requirement.
The defendant in State v. Bell, No. 86A02-2 (N.C. March 21, 2025), failed to object to gender-based discrimination during jury selection. Accordingly, the North Carolina Supreme Court concluded that the “defendant’s J.E.B. claim was not preserved for appellate review.” Slip Op. at 2. If the Supreme Court were reviewing a judgment of conviction on direct appeal, this would not be surprising: a defendant’s failure to raise a constitutional issue at trial generally precludes a court’s consideration of the issue on appeal. But the Supreme Court in Bell was instead reviewing the denial of the defendant’s motion for appropriate relief, where the applicability of the preservation rule is less clear. This post considers Bell’s application of that rule to a postconviction motion.
This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on April 2, 2025. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present.
On Wednesday, the Michigan Supreme Court held in a 5-1 opinion that the odor of marijuana alone isn’t a sufficient reason for police to conduct a warrantless search of a car. In 2018, the possession and use of small amounts of marijuana by people who are at least 21 years old became legal. However, the law specifies that marijuana cannot be used while operating a vehicle.
In the opinion, Justice Megan Cavanagh notes that “the smell of marijuana might just as likely indicate that the person is in possession of a legal amount of marijuana, recently used marijuana legally, or was simply in the presence of someone else who used marijuana” and that the smell “no longer constitutes probable cause sufficient to support a search for contraband.”