The Limits of Police Power in a Traffic Stop Let’s say you’re pulled over for speeding. The cop comes up to your window and says he clocked you going 74 in a 65 (leaving aside for the moment that everyone drives faster than that during rush hour, including the same cop who pulled you over). It’s 1:00 in the...
Continue ReadingThe Setup I can’t count the number of police reports I’ve read that start with a routine traffic stop for speeding, at some classic Raleigh Police speed trap like Glenwood Avenue by the Carolina Country Club or south of downtown on S. Dawson Street, and then it all escalates into a DWI investigation because the cop-on-duty “detects an odor...
Continue ReadingEventually North Carolina will catch up with the more enlightened states where the dark age of marijuana prohibition has come to a close, but until that day, we have entered a new frontier with respect to your rights as a citizen when you are suspected of marijuana-related crimes. Why? Because the government and its uniformed foot soldiers can no...
Continue ReadingIn case you thought you were free travel on public roads without having to concern yourself with a baseless intrusion by law enforcement, rest assured that the various Wake County law enforcement agencies are still actively hosting DWI checkpoints in the area. While they occur with less frequency now than they did a couple of years ago when the...
Continue ReadingThe Klan announced a “victory parade” at the news that Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States. After all, Trump gave the rhetoric of hate a home at the center of his campaign. He made blanket statements describing Mexicans as “rapists,” and described Mexico itself as “our enemy.” Trump refused to condemn David Duke, America’s...
Continue Reading* According to Washington Governor Jay Inslee, in a hyperbolic defense of his state’s imposition of a new law that gives the police yet another reason to intrude on your ability to travel freely without interference by law enforcement. They’re calling it “E-DUI” — driving under the influence of electronic devices. Meanwhile in every city in America: It will...
Continue ReadingAs we celebrate this symbolic day in the land of the free, pay no attention to fact that the Raleigh Police set up a DWI checkpoint on Saturday night in which every single driver was stopped and interrogated by the long arm of your local government without suspicion of any wrongdoing. Twelve people were arrested for DWIs, despite, presumably,...
Continue ReadingA Colorado judge issued an order barring the use of breath test evidence in cases originating from July 2015 to the present, following a hearing requested by defense attorney Danny Luneau on behalf of a client. Luneau established at the hearing that the calibration records of breath test instruments in the county had been falsified by state employees seeking...
Continue ReadingThe NC Court of Appeals issued an opinion in State v. Scaturro (PDF) on Tuesday that clarified an important point relating to the obligations of an individual involved in a car crash pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 20-166. Scaturro was a case in which the defendant struck a boy on a bicycle with his vehicle, after the boy made a change of...
Continue ReadingI was a public defender in DC for a number of years before my family and I moved to North Carolina and I began practicing criminal law here in NC. I was tuned into what I believed were real, systemic problems in the criminal justice system in DC during my time there. Wildly disproportionate prosecution of minorities, judges with...
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