State v. Lopez, ___ N.C. App. ___, 826 S.E.2d 498 (Mar. 19, 2019)

In this second-degree rape case, the trial court erred by ordering lifetime SBM where the State did not meet its burden of proving that SBM was a reasonable Fourth Amendment search. The United States Supreme Court has held that SBM is a search. Therefore, before subjecting a defendant to SBM, the trial court must first examine whether the monitoring program is reasonable. Here, the State failed to carry its burden of proving the SBM was a reasonable Fourth Amendment search where it failed to put on any evidence regarding reasonableness. The State will have only one opportunity to prove that SBM is a reasonable search. Here, because it failed to do so, the court reversed the trial court’s SBM order.