There was a lot of action at the United States Supreme Court this week. The new Term opened with Heien v. North Carolina, the burned-out brake light case where the legal issue is whether a traffic stop may be based on an officer’s reasonable mistake of law. The oral argument transcript is here, and a good recap of the issues on SCOTUSBlog is here. For those reading the tea leaves, SCOTUSBlog predicts that the Court will affirm the state supreme court and rule that a stop may be based on an officer’s reasonable mistake of law. The Court also heard a case about prison beard policies and religious rights, and granted certiorari on a case that asks whether an officer may extend a lawful traffic stop to ask a few off-topic questions or have a drug dog sniff the vehicle. I may post separately on the latter case. In other news: Gun rights group challenges State Fair policy. As I noted in a previous post, the Commissioner of Agriculture plans to ban concealed carry at the State Fair this year. It’s not clear that the Commissioner has the legal authority to do so, and Grass Roots North Carolina filed suit yesterday, seeking a preliminary injunction allowing concealed carry permit holders to carry at the Fair. WRAL has the story here. Welty takes to the airwaves to explain proposed state constitutional amendment. I am pretty sure that all regular readers of this blog have taken the time to review and digest the [...]
Faculty Coordinators
