Articles related to fourth amendment

About a month ago, I posted about Flock cameras. I noted that litigants in both civil and criminal cases had begun to argue that the use of such cameras – […]

Automatic license plate readers, or ALPRs, have been in the news lately. Most ALPRs are made by a company called Flock Safety and therefore commonly are called Flock cameras. This […]

The Supreme Court decided several major cases in its recently-concluded Term, but for people interested in the Fourth Amendment, the most anticipated was United States v. Chatrie, __ U.S. __ […]

The role of law enforcement officers in involuntary commitments is controversial. Some argue that individuals subject to involuntary commitment are dangerous by definition, so it makes sense to task officers […]

The North Carolina Supreme Court held in State v. Julius, 385 N.C. 331 (2023) (Julius I), that an officer’s warrantless search of a vehicle trapped in a ditch and partially […]

When can law enforcement officers enter a person’s home, without a warrant, in order to provide emergency assistance? How sure must the officers be that assistance is needed before an […]

In U.S. v. Johnson, 148 F.4th 287 (4th Cir. 2025) (summarized here), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently rejected a Fourth Amendment challenge to a canine sniff at the front door of the defendant’s apartment. My colleagues Jeff Welty and Shea Denning have blogged about the issue of curtilage and multi-unit dwellings like apartment buildings in the past (here, here, and here), but Johnson is a good refresher on those principles. Read on for the details.

I recently participated in a WFAE radio show about law enforcement use of drones, along with a captain from the Winston-Salem Police Department and an advocate from the ACLU. I thought the discussion was excellent, with a nice balance of perspectives. In the course of preparing for the program, I did an environmental scan about how law enforcement officers are currently using drones, and looked for court opinions about some of the legal questions presented by drone use. This post summarizes what I learned before and during the show.

Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), holds that the contents of a cell phone may not be searched incident to arrest, but allows for the possibility that the phone itself may be seized incident to arrest. This post addresses when such a seizure is permissible and how long it may last.

North Carolina doesn’t have a land border with Mexico or Canada, so most people don’t think of us as a border state. But we are. We have a maritime border and several international airports that courts have deemed the functional equivalent of a border. Fourth Amendment protections are greatly reduced at the border, and United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the federal agency responsible for securing the border, reports that in 2023 it conducted border searches of electronic devices belonging to 41,467 travelers. This post considers when law enforcement officers may search an international traveler’s electronic devices.