Is It Proper to Charge a Person with RDO for Refusing to Open the Door for a Search Warrant?

I was at the magistrates’ fall conference last week when a magistrate asked me whether an occupant of a dwelling could properly be charged with resisting, delaying, or obstructing a public officer (“RDO”) for declining to unlock and open the door for an officer executing a search warrant. At first I thought so, but later became less sure. So I decided to look into it and write about it here. RDO is defined in G.S. 14-223(a), which provides that “any person [who] shall willfully and unlawfully resist, delay or obstruct a public officer in discharging or attempting to discharge an official duty . . . is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.” For purposes of this post, I’m assuming that it is clear to the occupant that the officer is in fact an officer. I’m also assuming that the officer clearly states that he or she has a search warrant and demands entry, and that the occupant is able to hear the officer. And I’m assuming that the occupant in question is a resident of the premises to be searched or otherwise has the authority to unlock and open the door. With those parameters in mind, I don’t think there’s a North Carolina appellate case directly on point. In fact, the only case that I found interpreting the RDO statute in the context of search warrants is State v. Richardson, 202 N.C. App. 570 (2010). In that case, the defendant was inside an apartment when officers arrived to execute a search [...]