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Brian Beasley is the Legal Adviser for the High Point Police Department in High Point, North Carolina. In order to justify his exorbitant (not really) salary and keep his officers informed of the latest changes in the law, he writes legal updates from time to time. Brian knows that officers aren’t generally enthusiastic about reading something entitled “Legal Update” so he tries to include some humorous footnotes to encourage them. Since he began writing these updates, officers from other agencies have asked to be added to the mailing list, but Brian decided that creating a blog was by far a more arrogant and geeky option.

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    “I’m With Stupid:” The Reliability of Accomplice Statements

    24 May

    Posted by Brian Beasley In Legal Update

    To download a PDF file of this update, click here

    “I’m With Stupid”: The Reliability of Accomplice Statements
    Legal Question of the Week
    Vol. 3, Number 10
    May 21, 2010

    Brian Beasley
    Singing Like A Canary and Legal Adviser, HPPD

                In the interest of originality, let’s start this week’s update with…

    A HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION:

    It is a dark and stormy night.  You are on patrol when you receive a call of a breaking and entering in progress at a nearby business.  When you arrive on the scene you see a suspect climb out of one of the windows and run off into the nearby woods.  As you get closer, you see another suspect start to climb out the window and decide to take this suspect into custody.1 You successfully arrest suspect #2 and put him in the back of your patrol car, where you Mirandize him and ask him who the other guy was that climbed out of the window first.2  He confesses to the break-in and tells you that he knows the other guy as “Tattoo Sam” and that “Tattoo Sam” lives at a house close to where the breaking and entering occurred.

     You leave your arrestee in the custody of one of your fellow officers and decide to go over to the house where “Tattoo Sam” is supposed to live.  When you get to the house, you see a man in the front yard wearing a work shirt with the name “Sam” stitched on the pocket and you notice that the guy is covered in tattoos.  You wonder to yourself if this might be “Tattoo Sam.”  He acknowledges that most people call him that. 

    Do you have probable cause to arrest Tattoo Sam?

                Surprisingly, the answer may be “yes.”3 Read More

    1. Your choice was to chase after the first suspect or grab the one that hasn’t had a chance to run yet.  It doesn’t take you long to make that decision. ↩
    2. You are required to Mirandize this suspect because (1) he is in custody (his movement is restrained to a degree associated with a formal arrest) and (2) the question (“who committed this crime with you”) is interrogation because it is reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. ↩
    3. This should be “yes” with several asterisks next to it.  Please read the update for some warnings about taking this answer too definitively. ↩
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    Passing Through Checkpoint Chickie: How To Conduct A Legal Checkpoint

    07 May

    Posted by Brian Beasley In Legal Update

    To download a PDF file of this update, click here

    Passing Through “Checkpoint Chickie”: How To Conduct A Legal Checkpoint
    Legal Question of the Week
    Vol. 3, Number 9
    May 7, 2010

    Brian Beasley
    Misser of Mayberry and Legal Adviser, HPPD

                In that great television series, The Andy Griffith Show,1 Don Knotts showed us what being a law enforcement officer in North Carolina is all about through his portrayal of the fearless lawman, Barney Fife.  In the episode entitled “Barney’s Sidecar,” a report comes into the Sheriff’s office of “a speeder up on Highway 6.”2  Upon learning that Andy3 needs the squad car for other official business,4 Barney purchases a World War II motorcycle complete with sidecar5 and uses it to establish a traffic checkpoint on Highway 6 to “nip this speeding in the bud.”6  Hilarious hijinks ensue.

                This episode got the legal office thinking about whether Barney’s checkpoint was constitutional.7  As it happens, the North Carolina Court of Appeals handed down a decision in a checkpoint case just this week!8  Read More

    1. One of the interesting premises of the Andy Griffith show was that although Andy was the Sheriff, he refused to carry a gun, relying instead on his deep fountain of wisdom and common sense to solve any problem.  Who ever heard of a sheriff without a gun?  That would be as crazy as a sheriff who was prohibited under state and federal law from carrying a gun.  That could never happen…..could it? ↩
    2. Since the locations in The Andy Griffith Show were often based on real N.C. spots (Mount Pilot was Pilot Mountain, for instance) I was curious if there was a N.C. Hwy 6.  In fact, there used to be, but it was decommissioned in 2005.  N.C. Hwy 6 basically followed Patterson Avenue to Lee Street near the Greensboro Coliseum.  Come to think of it, there are quite a few speeders on that road. ↩
    3. Andy Griffith and I are both graduates of the first ever public university, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  We were also both famous members of the UNC Men’s Glee Club.  I would imagine we both were the coolest guys on campus during our time there, but I haven’t asked him to be sure. ↩
    4. Did Andy ever drive a car other than the official squad car?  Weren’t the taxpayers of Mayberry unhappy that their Sheriff used the only police car in town for personal business? ↩
    5. It’s unclear whether Barney used seized funds from Mayberry’s drug interdiction unit to make this purchase. ↩
    6. If you aren’t familiar with this episode you can catch the relevant scene on YouTube here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kplr_UDUIM   Any resemblance between Barney and former or current HPPD officers  is strictly coincidental. ↩
    7. This gives me an idea for a special crossover episode between The Andy Griffith Show and Law and Order.  Barney Fife travels to Manhattan for a vacation and is drawn into a homicide investigation.  I can see Barney testifying for District Attorney Jack McCoy now. ↩
    8. What a coincidence! ↩
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