Charlotte DWI and Criminal Defense Attorney J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can the police search my car without a warrant?”
At around 2:00 p.m. on the afternoon of February 21, Natali Castellanos-Tyler, a 30-year-old married mother of two small children, was driving home from a birthday party in her 2002 Ford Explorer. Castellanos-Tyler’s three-year-old daughter, Elisa, was riding in a back passenger seat.
J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Should I ever plead guilty to a charge?”
Sports and celebrity news sites in the United States, Canada and around the world have broadcast the details surrounding the arrest last Friday of professional hockey star Jarret Stoll.
J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “If I have an outstanding warrant, what should I do?”
Saturday, April 4 seemed like a good day for a cookout. Walter Scott drove his friend Pierre Fulton to a local church to pick up some vegetables. The men dropped the vegetables off at Fulton’s house and then headed over to Scott’s, where the cookout was planned.
Charlotte DWI and Criminal Defense Attorney J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What am I obligated to do if I’ve been pulled for Drinking and Driving?”
Long before Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown, and long before New York City police restrained an alleged untaxed-cigarette seller named Eric Garner, killing him and sparking a wave of protests nationwide, a Texas campus police officer shot and killed a 23-year-old college student outside his campus apartment after pulling him over for suspected drunken driving in circumstances that had some calling for a murder charge against the officer.
J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can I be arrested without evidence against me?”
The prosecution of a former New York City police officer who federal prosecutors say participated in “a concerted criminal plot to kidnap and eat women” has raised concerns that his case will set a precedent for so-called “thought-crime” prosecutions.
Charlotte DWI Lawyer Brad Smith answers the question: What are the long term effects of being convicted of a crime?
Like countless mothers across the United States, Laura Strange spent two hours cradling her newborn daughter Haley in her arms. Unlike most mothers, however, the twenty-five-year-old’s ankle was cuffed to her hospital bed, and those first two hours with Haley were likely the last Strange will spend with her daughter for the next two years.
Charlotte DWI Lawyer Brad Smith answers: A past conviction is keeping me from finding work what can I do?
A state legislator has introduced a bill that she says will close a loophole in Illinois’ sex offender registry. Critics of the bill say the bill is “overly punitive and burdensome” on offenders who have paid their debt to society, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Charlotte DWI Lawyer Brad Smith answers the question: What are the long term effects of being convicted of a crime?
The political battle over voting rights in North Carolina has focused in recent years on the issue of photo identification. One side of the political battle wants to require voters to produce valid, photo identification at polling places, while the other side contends that this requirement infringes upon the voting rights of citizens.
J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can I be arrested without evidence against me?”
In general, a person’s privacy rights extend as is “reasonable.” Persons do not, for instance, have a reasonable expectation of privacy when they walk on a public street. They may be photographed and recorded in a variety of settings and formats, and their words and behavior can be freely observed, noted and memorialized.
J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can I be arrested without evidence against me?”
In a meeting last month, the Santa Clara County, California supervisors voted 4 to 1 to authorize the expenditure of $500,000 on a product they had never seen. They did not know how the product worked, nor were they even sure of its brand name. The supervisors were required to enter into a nondisclosure agreement to even purchase and use the device.
But they would not be using the rectangular device—“small enough to fit into a suitcase, that intercepts a cellphone signal by acting like a cellphone tower,” according to the New York Times. The Santa Clara County Sheriff—Laurie Smith—would be using the device to track down terrorists and missing persons, she said. She could offer no details on technical specifications to the Times and said she had not seen a product demonstration.
Cell-site stimulators—called various names including StingRay or KingFish—capture texts, emails and other data “from all wireless devices in the immediate area” of a device. According to a 2011 Federal Bureau of Investigators affidavit, the device captures data from all devices in an area—even those of bystanders not targeted for investigation. That information is purged, the F.B.I. said, in order to ensure privacy rights, according to the Times.
For now, law-enforcement agencies and their technology suppliers have insisted on a veil of secrecy about the devices, saying disclosure “would let criminals, including terrorists, ‘thwart the use of this technology,’” according to the Times.
Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Blog
