Virtually all courts interpreted Belton v. New York, 453 U.S. 454 (1981), to authorize a law enforcement officer to search the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle incident to the […]
As I noted last week, the Supreme Court of the United States just decided J.D.B. v. North Carolina, an important Miranda case. I blogged about the case here when it […]
It isn’t often that a criminal law decision by the United States Supreme Court is an above-the-fold front page story in the News and Observer, but that’s the situation today. […]
The first post in this series discussed State v. Taylor. This one recounts the what not to do lessons from last week’s court of appeals’ decision in State v. Petty […]
One of my colleagues recently tipped me off to a great article in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Dr. Jennifer G. Clarke entitled Perinatal Care for Incarcerated […]
Yesterday, in United States v. Portillo-Munoz, the Fifth Circuit held that illegal immigrants do not have Second Amendment rights. The defendant in the case was charged with being an illegal […]
I was walking my dog this weekend when a neighbor stopped me for one of those “hey, you’re a lawyer” conversations that always seems to involve an area of law […]
The General Assembly continues to move swiftly. Its budget is on the Governor’s desk, so legislators have turned their attention to other matters. For example, S 756, which would eliminate […]
If I were to compile guidance for law enforcement officers and judges on “what not to do” in an impaired driving case, I’d be sure to include excerpts from two […]
The Court of Appeals released several criminal law opinions yesterday. One that caught my eye was State v. Merrell, __ N.C. App. __ (2011). In a nutshell, the defendant was […]