Over the past several months, I’ve been dropping by clerks’ offices to look at search warrants. I’ve made it to six offices, including offices in eastern, central, and western North Carolina, and in urban and rural areas. I’ve reviewed and made notes on 279 warrants and have at least skimmed hundreds more. The warrants I’ve reviewed were sought by 38 different agencies for a range of offenses. What follows are a few observations based on what I saw. The clerks’ offices were welcoming and helpful. Returned search warrants are public records, but I got the sense that it was a little unusual for someone to show up wanting to wade through dozens of search warrants. Nonetheless, every office that I went to welcomed me and made the warrants available. They all had them filed neatly and in a logical order. In some instances I had ready access to a few years’ worth of warrants while others had warrants going much farther back. The experience overall was very positive and I am grateful for the hospitality I received. No-knock warrants seem to be very rare. The original impetus for my research was to get a sense of how often no-knock warrants are issued, and how no-knock authorization is documented. Unfortunately for my research, I didn’t encounter a single no-knock warrant in my visits to clerks’ offices. I located some by searching appellate records and by reaching out to contacts across the state, so I know that at least some judicial officials occasionally [...]
Faculty Coordinators
