Last week, the FBI searched former President Trump’s home at the Mar-a-Lago Club pursuant to a search warrant. At first none of the relevant documents were publicly available. The application, the warrant itself, and the inventory were all sealed. The Government, with the consent of former President Trump, later moved to unseal the warrant and the inventory. That motion was granted and anyone can access the now-public documents here. The application remains under seal, though members of the news media have moved to unseal it. Because several people asked me about public access to federal search warrants and related documents, and because the process isn’t exactly the same as it is under state law, I thought I’d do a post comparing state and federal law on this issue.
public records
Criminal Investigations and Public Records
The Court of Appeals held earlier this month in In re Public Records Request to DHHS, 2022-COA-284, ___ N.C. App. ___ (May 3, 2022), that the State had no authority to initiate an action in superior court seeking to prevent the disclosure of documents related to its investigation of the death of John Neville, who died while imprisoned in the Forsyth County Law Enforcement Detention Center. This post will review that decision as well as the rules that govern the disclosure of records related to a criminal investigation.
The Andrew Brown Body Cam Rulings
In the wake of the April 21 killing of Andrew Brown, Jr., in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, I have fielded several media inquiries about our body cam law and the judge’s ruling limiting access to the footage about the shooting. With the help of the School of Government’s public records expert, Frayda Bluestein, I learned several things about our law. Below are a few that stand out to me. (You can read Frayda’s thorough analysis of the body cam law here and a discussion by Jeff Welty of a 2019 amendment to the law here.)
Body Camera Footage May Now Be Released for “Suspect Identification or Apprehension”
The General Assembly recently amended the law that governs the release of body camera footage. This post explains the change.
Hearsay Exceptions: Public Records & Reports
In my last blog post on hearsay exceptions, I discussed the business records exception. Here, I’ll address the hearsay exception for public records and reports. Rule 803(8) provides a hearsay exception for “[r]ecords, reports, statements, or data compilations, in any form, of public offices or agencies, setting forth: (A) the activities of the office or … Read more
Are Mug Shots Public Records?
[Editor’s Note: My colleague Frayda Bluestein is the author of this post, which she wrote for the School of Government’s blog about local government law. Because she’s not a regular contributor to this blog, she’s not set up in the software as an author, which is why it is posted under my name and picture. … Read more
New Publications of Interest
If you haven’t heard about them already, you should know about two fantastic new publications by School of Government faculty members. The first is Bob Farb’s paper on Maryland v. Shatzer, the Supreme Court’s recent Miranda case that I mentioned briefly here. The Court held that after a suspect invokes his right to counsel, police … Read more