Do You Mind if I Search? (February 11, 2010)
Jeff Welty
I’ve bumped into a couple recent cases in which law enforcement officers have requested consent to search a car and have received ambiguous responses. (For a discussion of when officers […]
Retroactivity of Melendez-Diaz (July 20, 2009)
Jessica Smith
Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. __, 129 S. Ct. 2527 (2009), decided by the United States Supreme Court last month, already has had significant implications for criminal prosecutions in North […]
Montejo v. Louisiana (May 27, 2009)
Jeff Welty
Two big developments at the United States Supreme Court. First, President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter. The New York Times story is here, some News […]
Magistrates Appointing Counsel? (May 8, 2009)
Jeff Welty
Last term, the United States Supreme Court decided Rothgery v. Gillespie County, available here. As most folks likely know, before Rothgery, North Carolina law held that a defendant’s Sixth Amendment […]
Kansas v. Ventris and the Sixth Amendment (April 30, 2009)
Jeff Welty
The Supreme Court’s latest criminal law decision is Kansas v. Ventris, available here. The basic holding is that a statement obtained in violation of a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to […]
Confessions and Custody (April 15, 2009)
Jeff Welty
The Court of Appeals decided two Miranda cases last week: In re J.D.B, available here, and State v. Rooks, available here. The former is a very close juvenile case that […]
Encrypted Computer Files and the Fifth Amendment (March 19, 2009)
Jeff Welty
Can the state compel a suspect to provide access to encrypted files on the suspect’s computer? For example, if the police suspect that I’m running a Ponzi scheme, but I’ve […]