North Carolina Criminal Law

The Ninth Circuit recently decided a case that addresses a question I’ve been asked several times: may the police answer a seized cell phone? The answer may depend on the […]

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Yesterday, I wrote about a pair of recent cases about weaving within a lane of travel. Today, I want to mention another pair of recent cases related to automobiles. Last […]

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To be valid, consent to search must be voluntary. Is consent voluntary when given after an officer thrreatens to obtain a search warrant if consent is withheld? Generally, yes. See […]

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It was Father’s Day this Sunday, so it’s a good time for a post about family relationships. As a jumping off point, I’ll use a case that was recently highlighted […]

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The scope of a suspect’s consent to search is determined objectively, by “what . . . the typical reasonable person [would] have understood by the exchange between the officer and […]

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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 […]

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Note about holiday blogging schedule: Because I am certain that all of you are planning your holidays around this blog, I thought I’d mention that I’ll continue to post daily […]

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Most readers of this blog know (1) that a search done pursuant to consent doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment, but (2) that the scope of search is limited by the […]

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