This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on May 17, 2022. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.
Criminal Investigations and Public Records
The Court of Appeals held earlier this month in In re Public Records Request to DHHS, 2022-COA-284, ___ N.C. App. ___ (May 3, 2022), that the State had no authority to initiate an action in superior court seeking to prevent the disclosure of documents related to its investigation of the death of John Neville, who died while imprisoned in the Forsyth County Law Enforcement Detention Center. This post will review that decision as well as the rules that govern the disclosure of records related to a criminal investigation.
News Roundup
As the PBS Newshour reports, this week the United States Department of the Interior released the first volume of an investigative report that examines the federal Indian boarding school system that operated from 1819 to 1969 and visited widespread abuse upon children of Native communities. A second volume of the report is expected to investigate burial sites at the schools, where thousands of students died from illness, accidental injuries, and abuse. Keep reading for more news.
Case Summaries: NC Supreme Court (May 6, 2022)
This post summarizes published criminal law decisions from the North Carolina Supreme Court released on May 6, 2022. These summaries will be added to the School’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.
Case Summaries – Court of Appeals of North Carolina (May 3, 2022)
This post summarizes published criminal law decisions from the Court of Appeals of North Carolina released on May 3, 2022. These summaries will be added to the School’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.
News Roundup
The biggest legal story of the week was the surprise leak of a draft opinion for the U.S. Supreme Court written by Justice Samuel Alito that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Politico broke the story and later reported Chief Justice John Roberts’s confirmation that the leaked draft was authentic and his direction to the Marshal of the Court to launch an investigation into the leak. Keep reading for more news.
Witness Intimidation
I am an avid watcher of television legal dramas—although I can’t say whether that is because of or in spite of my profession. Even so, it is easy for me to pick up on the unrealistic portions of those shows: the ease of gathering evidence, the speed with which perpetrators are caught, the overall swiftness of the trial—the entire process usually being completed within 45 minutes. I also tend to pick up on some of the more realistic, practical aspects of the shows: the differing types of offenses, the potential constitutional issues that may arise, and the corollary offenses that attach during the process.
One of the most common and possibly most overlooked corollary offenses is witness intimidation. The perpetrators almost always engage in some sort of interference but are rarely charged in the shows. That may be because there is already so much content to fit within a 45-minute time frame. But in real-world practice, it could also be because witness intimidation is not always as straightforward as one might think. This post analyzes North Carolina’s witness intimidation law as proscribed by G.S. 14-226, as well as other issues and nuances that may arise in this context.
Search Warrants for Digital Devices and the Requirement that Warrants be Executed within 48 Hours
I’ve had several questions lately about the requirement in G.S. 15A-248 that “[a] search warrant must be executed within 48 hours from the time of issuance.” The specific concern is how this applies to searches of digital devices, which frequently require off-site forensic analysis that may not begin, let alone end, until substantially more than 48 hours after issuance of the warrant. Although we don’t have an appellate case on point in North Carolina, courts in other jurisdictions have held that so long as the initial seizure of the device is timely, the forensic analysis may be conducted later.
News Roundup
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department held a press conference this week saying that the department is increasing its efforts to prevent groups of people from riding bicycles, dirt bikes, and ATVs recklessly and aggressively in the Uptown area. Officers have arrested nearly 30 people over the past two years for crimes associated with the reckless riding and Captain Bret Balamucki said that there has been a recent increase in violence by the groups. Keep reading for more news.