Update on Pole Cameras and the Fourth Amendment
When an officer attaches a video camera to a utility pole and uses it to monitor a suspect’s home continuously for several months, is that a “search” within the meaning […]
News Roundup
Queen Elizabeth II died this week. When she took the throne, Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Harry Truman was the President of the United […]
Case Summaries – N.C. Court of Appeals (Sept. 6, 2022)
This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on September 6, 2022. This summary will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a […]
EWarrants, Errors, and First Appearances, Oh My!
Last July, the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) launched a new application for generating criminal process and pleadings: eWarrants. This application replaced NCAWARE and is part of […]
New Bulletin on Units of Prosecution
I’m happy to announce the publication of my new bulletin, Units of Prosecution: Charging Multiple Counts for the Same Conduct. The bulletin explores a common issue that arises in various […]
News Roundup
The news story I pondered the most this week was this AP article entitled Watering While Black. It explores the arrest of a Black pastor in Alabama who was tending […]
DMV Hearings and Procedural Due Process
Earlier this year, the North Carolina Court of Appeals in Edwards v. Jessup, 282 N.C. App. 213 (2022), considered whether a license revocation hearing in which a hearing officer employed […]
Should Small Towns Have Police Departments?
Kenly is a small town with a population just under 2,000. It made national news recently when the chief and all the full-time officers in the Kenly Police Department resigned. […]
News Roundup
On Monday, a grand jury in Wake County returned a presentment against Attorney General Josh Stein and two people affiliated with his 2020 electoral campaign. The presentment asked the Wake […]
A Look at the 2022 Sentencing Commission Recidivism Report
The North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission released its biennial Correctional Program Evaluation, better known as the Recidivism Report. It is prepared in conjunction with the Division of Adult […]