North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

As I discussed here, the Fourth Circuit recently ruled in United States v. Graham, __ F.3d __, 2015 WL 4637931 (4^th Cir. Aug. 5, 2015), that an officer who obtained two suspects’ cell site location information (CSLI) without a search warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. (The officer used a court order based on a lower standard, as purportedly authorized by the relevant federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d).) I’ve had a number of practical questions about Graham from officers, agency attorneys, and judges, and I thought that I would collect some of the questions here.

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The Fourth Circuit just decided United States v. Graham, an important case about law enforcement access to cell site location information (CSLI). This post summarizes the case, explains its importance for North Carolina proceedings, and puts it in context in the broader debate about this type of information.

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Many child pornography cases begin when someone with access to the defendant’s computer looks through it, finds child pornography, and contacts law enforcement. For example, the recent Raleigh case in which a “Santa for hire” was charged with possessing child pornography began when a computer repair technician contacted police. In this type of case, does the private party’s search of the defendant’s computer destroy the defendant’s privacy interest such that an officer may then search the computer without a search warrant? A recent federal case explores the issue.

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I’m happy to announce that my book on digital evidence is now available. There are five chapters, covering (1) search warrants for digital devices, (2) warrantless searches of digital devices, (3) law enforcement access to electronic communications, (4) tracking devices, and (5) the admissibility of electronic evidence.

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Years ago, the School of Government did quite a bit of training for the Highway Patrol and other law enforcement officers. These days, we focus most of our criminal law courses on judges, lawyers, and magistrates. But I still view officers as an important audience for our work, and I recently wrote an article for Police Chief magazine that is meant to help officers obtain valid search warrants for digital devices.

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Whether the plain view doctrine makes sense in the context of computer searches, and if it doesn’t, what courts should do about it, are controversial issues. We don’t have any […]

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There’s a recurrent discovery issue in child pornography cases. Generally, it goes like this: the defendant is arrested and charged with a child pornography offense. The prosecution contends that the […]

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