North Carolina Criminal Law

I have been covering developments around the legalization of hemp in North Carolina since 2018. Never did I suspect then that I would still be working on the topic all […]

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In Part I of my Spring 2024 cannabis update, I discussed the search and seizure issues arising in North Carolina courts around cannabis. Part II explores drug identification evidence issues […]

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Like most of the rest of the country, I followed the recent confirmation hearings for Judge (now Justice) Kavanaugh with great interest. As the readers of this blog already know, […]

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Sometimes the crime is caught on video. When this happens, can an officer identify the perpetrator as the defendant? This issue came up in State v. Weldon, a recent court […]

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Proving that a driver was impaired by alcohol is not all that difficult, particularly when the driver submits to a breath test and the result is .08 or more.  Proving […]

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Even the greenest of prosecutors knows to ask it.  And all officers, from rookie to veteran, know how to answer. Rare is the impaired driving case without it. What’s the […]

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I came across an interesting out-of-state case today. In State v. McLean, __ A.3d __ (N.J. Mar. 31, 2011), the Supreme Court of New Jersey held that an officer who […]

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Because our appellate courts often find the Fourth Circuit’s opinions to be persuasive authority, I read all the Fourth Circuit’s published criminal cases. Yesterday, the court decided United States v. […]

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A civil case decided by the court of appeals last week, Blackwell v. Hatley, addresses when a witness may testify as to his or her opinion of how fast a […]

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