As I discussed here, the Fourth Circuit recently ruled in United States v. Graham, __ F.3d __, 2015 WL 4637931 (4th Cir. Aug. 5, 2015), that an officer who obtained two suspects’ cell site location information (CSLI) without a search warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. (The officer used a court order based on a lower standard, as purportedly authorized by the relevant federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d).) I’ve had a number of practical questions about Graham from officers, agency attorneys, and judges, and I thought that I would collect some of the questions here. Does Graham apply to North Carolina? Not directly, but officers probably should act as if it does. North Carolina’s state courts aren’t bound by the Fourth Circuit’s interpretation of the Fourth Amendment. To use a military analogy, the Fourth Circuit isn’t in the chain of command of the North Carolina courts. See, e.g., Housecalls Home Health Care, Inc. v. State Dep’t of Health and Hum. Svcs., 200 N.C. App. 66 (2009) (noting that “we are not bound by decisions of the Fourth Circuit”). However, North Carolina judges often pay close attention to the Fourth Circuit’s rulings and they may find Graham persuasive, even though other federal circuits have disagreed with the conclusion reached in Graham. (I discussed the circuit split in my original blog post on Graham.) For that reason, a cautious officer will operate as if Graham were the law of the state. Furthermore, officers who are working on cases that they may wish to [...]
Faculty Coordinators
