A UNC School of Government Blog
I don’t follow professional basketball very closely, but I was absolutely stunned by a play late in a recent playoff game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks, already leading the series 3-0, were ahead by 30 points in the final quarter of the fourth game. Dallas guard Jose Barea drove … Read more
I’ve had a couple of questions recently about something that I’d never considered before: whether a guest has “standing” to contest a search of the outbuildings associated with a host’s home. Most readers will know the legal backdrop. In order to argue that the results of an allegedly illegal police search should be suppressed, a … Read more
At least here in the Triangle, the headlines today are all about the Wake County conviction of Bradley Cooper for killing his wife, Nancy. I haven’t followed the trial closely, but I will follow the appeal with interest, because the defense has made clear that the trial judge’s exclusion of the defendant’s proposed expert witnesses … Read more
The North Carolina Supreme Court held in State v. Ward, 364 N.C. 133 (2010) (discussed here), that the trial court abused its discretion by permitting an expert chemist to identify pills as controlled substances based solely on a visual inspection and comparison with medical literature, as this methodology was not sufficiently reliable pursuant to Rule … Read more
The court of appeals recently decided a few cases involving satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders, so it seemed a good time to write a blog post about it and to update my sex offender registration and monitoring flow chart. In State v. Clark, the defendant was convicted of first-degree rape under G.S. 14-27.2(a)(1)—that is, … Read more
I keep a list of cases from across the country on warrantless searches of computers and other electronic devices. It covers topics like searches of cellular phones incident to arrest, whether consent to search a residence includes consent to search the computers therein, and whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in an employer-issued … Read more
Three bills introduced in the General Assembly this session provide for seizure and forfeiture of motor vehicles involved in certain motor vehicle offenses. House Bill 451 provides for seizure of motor vehicles driven by persons charged with driving while license revoked if the person has two or more prior convictions for driving while license revoked. … Read more
1. The General Assembly has been working on the budget lately. The House is proposing significant budget cuts to the court system, including reductions in the number of victim/witness legal assistants, reductions to indigent defense, and reductions to the Administrative Office of the Courts, including the elimination of trial court administrators. That last bit is … Read more
I’ve written before about how North Carolina’s law related to sex offender registration has changed over the years in response to federal mandates. In 2006 Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, Title I of which is the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, or SORNA. SORNA includes a set of minimum … Read more
This recent post by Professor Orin Kerr reports on an emerging split of authority on what the state needs to show about the training and experience of a drug-sniffing dog before a dog’s alert will provide probable cause – to search a car, for example, or to support the issuance of a search warrant for … Read more