A UNC School of Government Blog
On June 1, 2010, the N.C. Court of Appeals applied Arizona v. Gant in State v. Johnson and held that the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when the police searched his vehicle incident to his arrest. There is nothing particularly significant about that holding, as it involved a fairly straightforward application of Gant. However, … Read more
The court of appeals released a batch of opinions yesterday. Several are interesting and important, and there were an unusually large number of opinions in favor of defendants, including some in very serious cases. One of those is State v. Carter, the court’s first stab at applying Arizona v. Gant — a case about which … Read more
The Supreme Court (Washington, not Raleigh) has been exceptionally busy with criminal law matters over the last few months. As readers of this blog know, two of the blockbuster decisions this Term have been Arizona v. Gant, which severely restricted vehicle searches incident to arrest, and Herring v. United States, which held that the exclusionary … Read more
OK, one more post about Arizona v. Gant, which I’ve previously discussed here and here. First, School of Government faculty member Bob Farb has written a short paper about Gant that summarizes the decision and its consequences. You can find the paper here. Second, I’ve been pondering one possible implication of Gant that I haven’t … Read more
The fallout from the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Arizona v. Gant, see my initial post here, has been fast and furious. Most questions I’ve received have been about how it applies to existing and past cases, not to future searches. Here are a couple of common questions and answers. 1. Does Gant apply to … Read more
The Supreme Court decided Arizona v. Gant yesterday. The opinion is available here, and a news article about the case is here. It’s a pretty significant Fourth Amendment case, so let’s unpack it a little bit, and please excuse the long post. When an officer lawfully arrests a suspect, the officer may search the suspect … Read more