Traffic Stops from Soup to Nuts
Happy new year! It’s great to be back at work after a relaxing vacation. I’ve written before about traffic stops. Recently, I returned to the subject and completed a pretty […]
News Roundup
Tomorrow’s a holiday, and the blog is going on vacation next week, so this will be the last post of 2010. Before rounding up the news, I wanted to take […]
The Duty to Report “Reportable Accidents” and Collisions with Parked Vehicles
State law requires the driver of a vehicle involved in a reportable accident to immediately notify the appropriate law enforcement agency of the crash. G.S. 20-166.1. A reportable accident is […]
Remain Within the Jurisdiction
It is a regular condition of probation for all supervised probationers that they “[r]emain within the jurisdiction of the court unless granted written permission to leave by the court or […]
Georgia Case on Searching Cell Phones Incident to Arrest
State court decisions from other southeastern states seem to carry a bit more weight as persuasive authority than do cases from jurisdictions that are farther afield. Therefore, I thought I’d […]
News Roundup
It’s been two weeks since the last news roundup, so there’s a lot to report: 1. Superior Court Judges Catherine Eagles and Ripley Rand have been confirmed by the Senate […]
Big News about Law Enforcement Access to Email
I’ve written about law enforcement access to electronic communications, both on this blog and, more extensively, in this Administration of Justice Bulletin. One major issue is how and when law […]
Improper Consideration at Sentencing of a Defendant’s Decision to Go to Trial
A trial court is free to consider all kinds of information about a defendant when deciding on a sentence. See State v. Pope, 257 N.C. 326 (1962) (“[I]t would not […]
Parking Enforcement: Civil Penalties, Infractions and Wheel Locks
The contents of an envelope tucked under the windshield wiper of your car parked on a city street doesn’t seem as ominous as a citation hand-delivered through your driver’s side […]
Promises, Promises
An involuntary confession can’t be used against a defendant at trial, not even to impeach him if he testifies. See, e.g., Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385 (1978). Whether a […]