Search search/open%20carry/page/3: open carry

Shea covered the recent escapes of two inmates from the Vance County Detention Center. On the lam since June 3, the pair were apprehended without incident on Tuesday this week […]

Last Friday, violence erupted outside the Wake County Courthouse when Gwendolyn White reportedly shot at two lawyers, Mary Harris and Jeffrey Whitley. The attack happened after a tense hearing at […]

This post summarizes criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during April of 2026. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. […]

A Greensboro, NC, police academy cadet has been charged with impersonating a police officer, per this story from local media. Maceo John Cannon, 20, allegedly confronted a woman about her […]

Following an epic loss to Carolina at the Dean Dome, Duke University’s head basketball coach claimed that his staff members were punched in the face and trampled by overzealous UNC […]

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on January 7, 2026. Videos of the defendant sexually assaulting his unconscious wife were authenticated […]

This post summarizes published criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during August 2025. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit cases are available here.

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Supreme Court released on August 22, 2025. Previously, summaries were added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, but due to personnel changes and resource limitations, that resource is no longer available. We will continue to post and archive new summaries here on the blog.

Law enforcement officers have long been authorized to search a person incident to the person’s arrest. But the precise scope of that authority has shifted over time. The most recent major case in this area was Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009), which placed new limits on an officer’s ability to search a motor vehicle incident to the arrest of an occupant. Whether Gant has any impact on an officer’s authority to search hand luggage like purses and backpacks has been the subject of considerable controversy. The issue is important given the ubiquity with which men as well as women carry backpacks, satchels, crossbody slings, and many other types of bags. This post discusses searches of such items incident to arrest.

This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on July 2, 2025.