A divided North Carolina Court of Appeals panel has reversed the conviction of a Brunswick County woman because the police officer who applied for a search warrant to raid the woman’s home had relied on the accounts of middleman that ...

Tagged with: Search Warrant

U.S. v. Wharton (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-147-16, 15 pp.) (Motz, J.) No. 15-4103, Oct. 21, 2016; USDC at Baltimore, Md. (Hollander, J.) 4th Cir. Holding: A woman convicted of crimes relating to her unlawful receipt of social security survivors’ benefits ...

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U.S. v. Lull (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-095-16, 27 pp.) (Duncan, J.) No. 15-4216, May 25, 2016; USDC at Raleigh, N.C. (Boyle, J.) 4th Cir. Holding: Because a search warrant application failed to disclose that the confidential informant –  who was ...

Tagged with: cocaine Search Warrant

The state’s case against a former Currituck County firefighter accused of placing a hidden camera in the women’s bunkroom of a firehouse appears to have crumbled, because a police detective failed to obtain consent to search an external hard drive ...

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A lie about the existence of a search warrant allowed a group of police officers to comb through an apartment and find crack cocaine and digital scales, leading to the conviction of one of the occupants after a federal trial ...

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Editor’s Note: Several words were inadvertently omitted from this story, substantially changing the meaning of the 30th paragraph. The words: “there was ‘nothing in the record’ to suggest that” have been inserted before “Inman ‘abandoned her detached and neutral role.'” ...

Tagged with: GPS heroin Marijuana Search Warrant

State v. Benters An affidavit filed by a Vance County Sheriff’s lieutenant was insufficient to support the issuance of a search warrant because (1) it did not explain why a Franklin County detective’s confidential informant was reliable

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Six months after the North Carolina Supreme Court overruled the state Court of Appeals and held that a police officer’s mistaken beliefs about the law could be a reasonable basis for a stop, the appeals court pushed back. In a recent ruling on a Wake County DWI case, the appeals court found that another arresting officer’s misunderstanding of the law was not reasonable.

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State v. Pasour After no one answered when officers knocked at defendant’s front door, the officers had no reason to expect to find anyone in the backyard; therefore, the officers violated defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights by searching the backyard without a warrant.

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State v. Richmond Officers executing a search warrant found defendant in the residence and drugs in plain view. Given a narcotics officer’s experience that “Where there’s drugs, there’s guns,” the officer was entitled to perform a weapons pat-down of defendant. We affirm the denial of defendant’s motion to suppress.

Tagged with: Criminal Practice search & seizure Search Warrant