North Carolina Criminal Law

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 […]

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In February, I blogged about State v. Thomas, 295 N.C. App. 564 (2024), and whether law enforcement can review ankle-monitoring data without a warrant. The defendant in Thomas was on […]

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Last September, the Court of Appeals decided State v. Thomas, No. COA23-210, __ N.C. App. __ (2024), a case involving law enforcement’s retrieval of ankle monitor location data gathered while […]

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Five years ago, I wrote about geofence warrants. I said then that “there are zero cases on Westlaw . . . [and] virtually no secondary source material about these warrants.” […]

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Earlier this year, the Fourth Circuit decided United States v. Zelaya-Veliz, 94 F.4th 321 (4th Cir. 2024). Phil summarized it here when it came out, but we thought it merited […]

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Once upon a time, search warrants were simple. An officer would obtain a warrant to search a suspect’s home or some other physical location connected to a crime. The officer […]

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In preparation for some upcoming teaching, I’ve been brushing up on anticipatory search warrants. Such warrants authorize a search, but only once a “triggering condition” takes place. The most common […]

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Suppose a superior court judge issues a search warrant authorizing the search of a suspect’s house for drugs. Officers execute the warrant, find drugs, seize them, and charge the suspect […]

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I recently finished a paper on the law and practice of no-knock warrants in North Carolina. I went with the creative title, The Law and Practice of No-Knock Search Warrants in […]

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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, […]

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