North Carolina Criminal Law

I’ve written about traffic stops at some length, in this paper. One of the areas in which the law is unsettled is the extent to which officers may engage in […]

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Suppose that a magistrate is asked to issue a search warrant for a particular residence. Based on the information presented to her by the applicant, the magistrate believes that there […]

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Yesterday, in United States v. Portillo-Munoz, the Fifth Circuit held that illegal immigrants do not have Second Amendment rights. The defendant in the case was charged with being an illegal […]

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The curtilage of a home is the area “directly and intimately connected with the [home] and in proximity” to it. State v. Courtright, 60 N.C. App. 247 (1983). In other […]

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Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided Kentucky v. King, a case that addresses — actually, eviscerates — the officer-created exigency doctrine. The facts are as follows: Officers investigating possible drug crimes […]

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Last week, I posted a paper about warrantless searches of computers and electronic devices. Today, I’m posting its companion: this paper about warrant searches of computers, which I have just […]

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I’ve had a couple of questions recently about something that I’d never considered before: whether a guest has “standing” to contest a search of the outbuildings associated with a host’s […]

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I keep a list of cases from across the country on warrantless searches of computers and other electronic devices. It covers topics like searches of cellular phones incident to arrest, […]

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Happy new year! It’s great to be back at work after a relaxing vacation. I’ve written before about traffic stops. Recently, I returned to the subject and completed a pretty […]

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I’ve written about law enforcement access to electronic communications, both on this blog and, more extensively, in this Administration of Justice Bulletin. One major issue is how and when law […]

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