This post summarizes published criminal and related decisions released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during April 2023. Cases that may be of interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit decisions are available here.
Open Carry and Reasonable Suspicion
A decade ago, I wrote a post about the circumstances under which police may stop a person who is carrying a gun openly. A lot has changed since then. The Supreme Court has strengthened the Second Amendment in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. __ (2022). The General Assembly has eliminated the requirement that North Carolina residents obtain a permit before buying a handgun. See S.L. 2023-8. And empirical scholarship suggests that many more Americans are carrying guns on a daily basis. See Ali Awhani-Robar et al., Trend in Loaded Handgun Carrying Among Adult Handgun Owners in the United States, 2015-2019, Am. J. Pub. Health (2022) (finding that in 2019, “approximately 6 million [gun owners carried] daily,” which was “twice the 3 million who did so in 2015”). So it is a good time to revisit the question.
News Roundup
In U.S. Supreme Court news, the Court recently stayed the execution of Richard Glossip. Mr. Glossip has spent 26 years on death row in Oklahoma. This was his ninth scheduled execution date. The state Attorney General agreed with Mr. Glossip that a stay was appropriate, categorizing the sentence as a “grave injustice” amid questions about the integrity of the conviction. The stay was obtained from the Court after the state parole board declined to recommend clemency and other state remedies were exhausted. Read on for more criminal law news.
May a Police Department Release its Own Body Worn Camera Footage to the Public?
Suppose that a police officer in a North Carolina city shoots and kills a person in an encounter that began with a traffic stop. There is extensive media coverage of the shooting. The mother of the person who died tells reporters that her son was driving home from work and never made it home. She describes her son as “a hard-working boy who never caused trouble for anybody.” The police chief has seen the recording from the officer’s body-worn camera. That footage shows the suspect jumping from his car and pointing a gun at the officer. The police chief wants to provide a copy of the recording to local reporters. May she do so?
News Roundup
The week began with news that one of the men accused of murder in the death of Wake County Sheriff Deputy Ned Byrd had escaped from a Virginia jail early Sunday morning. Alder Alfonso Marin-Sotelo was being held at the Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville, Virginia on federal gun charges when he escaped around 1 a.m. Another inmate, Bruce Callahan, who also has North Carolina connections, escaped late Sunday night.
Unfortunately, jail staff did not notice that either inmate was missing until after 3 a.m. Monday, giving Marin-Sotelo more than a day’s head start. The FBI joined the search Monday and promptly arrested Marin-Sotelo’s sister in High Point alleging that she paid someone to leave in the jail parking lot the getaway car that Marin-Sotelo used to flee the area.
Yesterday Marin-Sotelo was captured by Mexican authorities in Guerrero, more than 2,400 miles from Farmville, Va. He now faces federal charges for escape in addition to the pending state charge for murder. Callahan, who was convicted of federal drug charges, is still at large.
Case Summaries: N.C. Supreme Court (April 28, 2023) and N.C. Court of Appeals (May 2, 2023)
This post summarizes one published criminal opinion from the Supreme Court of North Carolina released on April 28, 2023, and three published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on May 2, 2023. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present.
The Role of Administrative Traffic Offenses in the North Carolina Criminal Justice System
This post explores the large role that administrative traffic offenses play in the state’s criminal justice system. The Lab’s Measuring Justice Dashboard shows that non-violent misdemeanor charges make up the bulk of the state system (Figure 1). Figure 1. Composition of Charges in the State System, 2021 Figure Note: DWI refers to impaired driving offenses. … Read more
Is NC’s Disorderly Conduct at Schools Statute Unconstitutionally Vague?
I started wondering about that question after reading a recent decision by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Carolina Youth Action Project v. Wilson, 60 F.4th 770 (4th Cir. 2023) (summarized here). There, the court struck down two South Carolina state laws aimed in large part at regulating conduct and speech in and around schools. Those laws are similar to our version of disorderly conduct by disrupting schools. This post examines the holding of Carolina Youth Action Project and its potential implications for North Carolina law.
Authenticating Photographs Obtained from Social Media Platforms
In my last post, I wrote about how a party might authenticate a Facebook direct message or other text-based electronic communication. That post focused on how the proponent of the evidence might establish who wrote the message, i.e., authorship. But what if a party wants to introduce a photograph that was posted on a social media platform? The concept of authorship doesn’t really apply, and in the age of Photoshop and AI-generated images, courts may have serious concerns about the accuracy of online images.
News Roundup
The state legislature continues to be in full swing. While much talk here on campus centers on a bill that would eliminate academic tenure, the criminal justice community is likely more interested in legislation that would expand warrantless cell phone surveillance. WRAL reports here that “[p]olice could track people’s cell phones in real time — without a warrant — under a bill that passed a state House committee Wednesday.” The bill in question is H719, and at a glance, it would allow the SBI to use a pen register or trap and trace device without court approval for up to 48 hours to find a runaway child or missing person, or when there is “immediate danger of death or serious bodily injury.” The bill has passed out of a House committee but its ultimate fate is uncertain. Keep reading for more news.