To download a PDF file of this update, click here

The Supremes Sing “Stop!  (Searching Vehicles Incident to Arrest) In The Name Of Love”:
Arizona v. Gant¹
Legal Question of The Week

Vol. 2, Number 10
April 24, 2009 

Brian Beasley
“Baby Love” and Legal Adviser, HPPD 

  We pause this week to mourn the passing of a law enforcement tool that has been celebrated for 28 long years.  This faithful friend has helped us make the streets safer, take guns and drugs away from the bad guys, and do our jobs in an efficient and easy to understand way.  Much has been taught and written about this technique over the past three decades that will now have to be entirely forgotten and corrected.  We now lay to rest the right to search vehicles incident to arrest.²

As with any tragedy, questions abound in our grief.  Why did he have to leave us so soon?  Why didn’t we appreciate him more when he was here?  What can we do now?  How do we go on from here?  How can there be self-help groups?  And who made that long distance call to Denver on my phone?  This legal update will attempt to answer some of these questions to help you cope in the days and weeks to come.  But first, let us celebrate the life of this doctrine with a brief look back at the history of searching vehicles incident to arrest. Read More

To download a PDF file of this update, click here

Discovery Dilemmas #2: Confidential Informants
Legal Question of The Week

Vol. 2, Number 9
April 10, 2009¹ 

Brian Beasley
C.I. #413 and Legal Adviser, HPPD 

            In my last legal update, you may recall I made the following statements concerning discovery in felony cases:

            The easiest rule to remember is the discovery rights of a defendant charged with a felony.  A defendant charged with a felony is entitled to see EVERYTHING in the “complete files of all law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation of the crimes committed or the prosecution of the defendant.”  (N.C.G.S. 15A-903.)  What do you have to turn over to the State?  Everything.  Say it out loud.  “Everything.”  The law says that your file “includes the defendant’s statements, the codefendants’ statements, witness statements, investigating officer’s notes, results of tests and examinations, or any other matter or evidence obtained during the investigation of the offenses alleged to have been committed by the defendant.” (N.C.G.S. 15A-903(a)(1), emphasis added.)  This definition may be tricky to memorize, so let me sum it up for you.  Everything.

            In fact, you may even remember that I offered a pretty comprehensive definition of the word “everything.”  You may have thought it surprising that a lawyer would be so straightforward and make such a categorical statement.  There’s a reason that lawyers tend to not be so straightforward and categorical and that is because for every rule, there is an exception.  The exception here, the “thing” that “everything” does not cover, is the identity of a confidential informant.²  So, when I say “everything,” I of course don’t really mean “everything,” I mean “almost everything.”³ Read More