North Carolina Criminal Law

Can a police officer order a suspect to empty his or her pockets during a Terry stop? The New York Times reports on claims that New York officers do so […]

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Jeff wrote earlier this week about roadside strip searches. Today’s post is about strip searches of arrestees as they are booked into the jail. The longstanding rule regarding searches of […]

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The Court of Appeals just decided State v. Battle, a case about roadside strip searches. It’s an important case for judges, lawyers, and especially officers. A confidential and reliable informant […]

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I’ve bumped into a couple recent cases in which law enforcement officers have requested consent to search a car and have received ambiguous responses. (For a discussion of when officers […]

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The Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled that cell phones generally cannot be searched without a warrant incident to arrest. That court’s decision is here. The law in North Carolina appears […]

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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 […]

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I am teaching today, so I only have time for a quick post on a subject that crops up from time to time: how can the state compel access to […]

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The News and Observer ran a story today about a piece of proposed legislation that would allow any law enforcement officer to search any probationer, for any reason, at any […]

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Nearly 90% of American adults have cell phones. When one of those cell phone users is arrested, may police search their mobile phone incident to arrest? The Fourth Circuit recently […]

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Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court decided Herring v. United States, no. 07-513, a case that raises interesting questions about the future of the exclusionary rule.  An officer […]

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