Charlotte DWI and Criminal Defense Attorney J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What is an expungement?”
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is currently considering moving forward with a plan that could lead to those convicted of certain crimes from being banned from entering certain parts of town for up to a year. The plan calls for the creation of “public safety zones” similar to prostitution-free zones that were created by the police department nearly 10 years ago. Critics have said that not only are the proposed public safety zones unconstitutional, but they’ve been shown to be ineffective in reducing crime.
J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What is the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony?”
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police office Randall Kerrick avoided conviction on manslaughter charges last week when the North Carolina jury deadlocked, forcing the judge presiding over the case to declare a mistrial. Experts say it is unclear how prosecutors will move forward, whether they will bring Kerrick up on similar charges a second time or consider other options.
J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can I be arrested without evidence against me?”
Domestic violence advocates and the family of a young woman murdered in east Charlotte last month are asking that officers with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department be given the authority to check a database showing criminal convictions from other states of persons not suspected of criminal activity.
J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC responds to “The person that called the police doesn’t want to press charges, can I still be prosecuted?”
The political world has been aflutter with outrage at Hillary Rodham Clinton’s use of a personal email account while employed as the Secretary of the United States Government’s Department of State.
In a press conference last week, Clinton said she decided which emails were a part of the public record and which emails were private. The latter, she suggested, had been deleted.
Now an American state—Massachusetts—is giving police officers the same power, only not over email. According to the Boston Globe, the Massachusetts Secretary of State has refused the newspaper’s request for “the names of five police officers caught drunken driving,” for a “report on an officer who was arrested,” for “booking photos of a state trooper,” and for an “entire log of people incarcerated in the state prison system.”
It seems—both at the state and federal levels—secrecy is all the rage.
In Massachusetts, that state’s supervisor of public records told the Globe that public departments have “the discretion to withhold records determined to be covered by CORI.” CORI stands for “Criminal Offender Record Information. The Massachusetts Secretary of State contends that law-enforcement officials have sweeping powers to decide what criminal records are made public, according to the Globe.
J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can I be arrested without evidence against me?”
Two Mecklenburg County Superior Court judges have indicated that they may be willing to unseal court records detailing how law-enforcement officers have used secret surveillance of cellphones and other wireless devices in closed investigations.
Superior Court Judge Richard Boner told the Charlotte Observer that the legal justification for sealing court records ends “once everything is over and done with” in a case. Superior Court Judge Robert Bell also indicated a willingness to consider unsealing some court orders that authorized the use of secret surveillance.
The surveillance equipment—known as StingRay, Hailstorm, AmberJack or TriggerFish—imitates a cellphone tower and enables officers to uncover the location of cellphones and wireless devices in the area, their serial numbers and other information. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police have denied using the surveillance equipment to eavesdrop on conversations or store data from innocent people.
A number of Charlotte criminal defense attorneys told the Observer that they were unaware of CMPD’s use of the equipment until the Observer’s recent stories on the matter. In the stories, CMPD acknowledged that law-enforcement officers have been using the surveillance equipment for at least eight years.
Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Blog
