{ "id": 8522825, "name": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. ROBERT LEE MACK", "name_abbreviation": "State v. Mack", "decision_date": "1982-05-04", "docket_number": "No. 8126SC1186", "first_page": "163", "last_page": "168", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "57 N.C. App. 163" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "N.C. Ct. App.", "id": 14983, "name": "North Carolina Court of Appeals" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 5, "name_long": "North Carolina", "name": "N.C." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "414 U.S. 218", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 11715586 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1973, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "235" }, { "page": "441" }, { "page": "477" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/414/0218-01" ] }, { "cite": "64 L.Ed. 2d 796", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "L. Ed. 2d", "year": 1980, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "100 S.Ct. 2165", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "S. Ct.", "year": 1980, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "446 US. 941", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6277664, 6275708, 6276260, 6274984, 6278350, 6275343, 6278644, 6279286, 6278967, 6277367, 6276539, 6275996, 6278014 ], "year": 1980, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/446/0941-08", "/us/446/0941-03", "/us/446/0941-05", "/us/446/0941-01", "/us/446/0941-10", "/us/446/0941-02", "/us/446/0941-11", "/us/446/0941-13", "/us/446/0941-12", "/us/446/0941-07", "/us/446/0941-06", "/us/446/0941-04", "/us/446/0941-09" ] }, { "cite": "257 S.E. 2d 551", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "weight": 4, "year": 1979, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "555-56" }, { "page": "556" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "298 N.C. 86", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8568503 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1979, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "92-93" }, { "page": "92" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/298/0086-01" ] }, { "cite": "285 S.E. 2d 104", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1981, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "304 N.C. 198", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8566759, 8566791, 8566834, 8566869, 8566902 ], "year": 1981, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/304/0198-01", "/nc/304/0198-02", "/nc/304/0198-03", "/nc/304/0198-04", "/nc/304/0198-05" ] }, { "cite": "279 S.E. 2d 111", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1981, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "52 N.C. App. 492", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C. App.", "case_ids": [ 12170383 ], "year": 1981, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc-app/52/0492-01" ] }, { "cite": "291 F. 2d 262", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F.2d", "case_ids": [ 1994555 ], "year": 1961, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/f2d/291/0262-01" ] }, { "cite": "285 U.S. 452", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 1175385 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1932, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/285/0452-01" ] }, { "cite": "280 S.E. 2d 448", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1981, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "302 N.C. 633", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8569185, 8569130, 8569234, 8569043, 8569082 ], "year": 1981, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/302/0633-04", "/nc/302/0633-03", "/nc/302/0633-05", "/nc/302/0633-01", "/nc/302/0633-02" ] }, { "cite": "274 S.E. 2d 381", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "385-386" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "50 N.C. App. 484", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C. App.", "case_ids": [ 2673701 ], "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "490" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc-app/50/0484-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 520, "char_count": 10203, "ocr_confidence": 0.812, "pagerank": { "raw": 5.12982294956584e-08, "percentile": 0.3236258175669701 }, "sha256": "063ab33d90db6756ca7b583352b81390716b9e40dbb290532fe0f38994586f9f", "simhash": "1:89a5453a6e8f145e", "word_count": 1700 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T20:31:38.946391+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [ "Judges WEBB and WELLS concur." ], "parties": [ "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. ROBERT LEE MACK" ], "opinions": [ { "text": "WHICHARD, Judge.\nJudge Snepp denied defendant\u2019s motion to suppress introduction of seventeen bags of cocaine which had been seized from defendant\u2019s person when he was arrested pursuant to a warrant charging him with uttering a forged check. Defendant then pled guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to sell and deliver. On 28 May 1980 he was sentenced to imprisonment.\nDefendant did not timely appeal pursuant to G.S. 15A-979(b) (1978), which provides that an order finally denying a motion to suppress evidence may be reviewed upon an appeal from a judgment of conviction, including a judgment entered upon a plea of guilty. On 20 July 1981 defendant filed a \u201cMotion for Appropriate Relief\u201d seeking \u201ca new trial, or . . . any other appropriate relief.\u201d On 3 August 1981 Judge Burroughs entered an order which stated that upon hearing defendant\u2019s motion he had ruled that defendant be allowed to perfect his appeal of the order denying his motion to suppress. Judge Burroughs\u2019 order set the time for filing and serving the proposed record on appeal and directed that defendant receive, at public expense, a copy of the transcript of the suppression hearing.\nA motion for appropriate relief on the ground that \u201c[t]he court\u2019s ruling was contrary to law with regard to motions made before or during the trial, or with regard to the admission or exclusion of evidence\u201d must be made \u201cnot more than 10 days after entry of judgment.\u201d G.S. 15A-1414. The motion here was made well beyond the requisite ten day period. G.S. 15A-1415 enumerates \u201cthe only grounds which [a] defendant may assert by a motion for appropriate relief made more than 10 days after entry of judgment.\u201d All grounds set forth therein, with one exception, are inapplicable here. Defendant apparently filed his motion pursuant to that one exception, G.S. 15A-1415(b)(3), which prescribes, as a ground for appropriate relief, that \u201c[t]he conviction was obtained in violation of the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of North Carolina.\u201d While the motion would be proper on that ground, the trial court lacked jurisdiction to pass on it, because defendant had given notice of appeal and more than ten days had expired since entry of judgment. G.S. 15A-1448(a)(3); see State v. Thompson, 50 N.C. App. 484, 490, 274 S.E. 2d 381, 385-386, disc. rev. denied, 302 N.C. 633, 280 S.E. 2d 448 (1981). The right to perfect an appeal for which the time allowed had long since expired thus was not \u201cappropriate relief\u2019 within the power of the trial court to grant. In our discretion, however, we have treated the purported appeal as a petition for a writ of certiorari and have allowed the writ.\nThe State\u2019s evidence at the hearing on the motion to suppress was as follows:\nOn 13 February 1980 L. D. Blakeney, a member of the Vice and Narcotics Section of the Charlotte Police Department, requested and obtained a search warrant for a designated apartment. He then went there with other officers to execute the warrant. He knew defendant\u2019s car; and because the car was not at the apartment, he and the other officers returned to the police station.\nLater Blakeney drove by the apartment again and saw defendant\u2019s car there. He left and returned with another officer. They observed that defendant\u2019s car was still there, and they \u201cnoticed two males enter the vehicle and back [it] out of the driveway.\u201d\nThey then called another uniformed officer \u201cto try to get the vehicle stopped.\u201d That officer stopped the vehicle, which defendant was driving, at a service station. Blakeney arrived at the scene, and the officer who had stopped defendant\u2019s car identified defendant to Blakeney.\nBlakeney then arrested defendant pursuant to a warrant for uttering a forged check, which had been issued 28 August 1976 while defendant was in prison. He \u201cthen searched [defendant\u2019s] person incident to arrest and recovered seventeen bags of cocaine in his front pants pocket.\u201d\nThere is no special squad in the Charlotte Police Department which serves warrants. Any officer can serve warrants if the subject is identified, and it was a part of Blakeney\u2019s duties \u201cto execute warrants and to go out and arrest people for worthless checks.\u201d\nDefendant\u2019s evidence was as follows:\nWhen his car was stopped on 13 February 1980, defendant thought it was a routine license check. As he started back to his car to obtain his registration, he was surrounded by police officers, one of whom said he had a warrant for defendant\u2019s arrest. No warrant was served on him, however, until he got to the Central Intelligence Bureau downtown. When he was searched, he \u201ckept asking each officer what the warrant was for and was never told until [he] got downtown.\u201d He saw the warrant as he was being taken into the Central Intelligence Bureau. He had been in prison from August 1976 until February 1979. The first time he saw this warrant was on 13 February 1980 when Blakeney showed it to him at police headquarters.\nThe trial court found that Blakeney had knowledge that a warrant for defendant\u2019s arrest for forgery had been issued and was not executed; that Blakeney arrested defendant pursuant to that warrant; that incident to the arrest he searched defendant\u2019s person; that in defendant\u2019s pants pockets he discovered seventeen bags of a substance later determined to be cocaine; and that the arrest warrant was served on defendant \u201cat the scene or shortly thereafter at the Law Enforcement Center.\u201d It concluded from these findings that \u201cas a matter of law . . . the evidence was seized as a result of a search incident to a lawful arrest and [was] admissible in evidence.\u201d It therefore denied the motion to suppress.\nDefendant contends the seizure was the result of \u201can unreasonable stop, seizure, and search . . . under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution,\u201d and that the evidence seized thus should have been suppressed. He argues that his arrest on the four-year-old forged check warrant was a mere pretext to search him for drugs; and that \u201ceven where an arrest is made under a valid arrest warrant, it may not be used as a mere pretext to make a search for incriminating evidence.\u201d See, United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U.S. 452, 76 L.Ed. 877, 52 S.Ct. 420 (1932); Taglavore v. United States, 291 F. 2d 262 (9th Cir. 1961); State v. Hall, 52 N.C. App. 492, 279 S.E. 2d 111, disc. rev. denied and appeal dismissed, 304 N.C. 198, 285 S.E. 2d 104 (1981).\nUnreasonable searches and seizures are prohibited by the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution, and all evidence seized in violation of the Constitution is inadmissible in a State court as a matter of constitutional law. (Citation omitted.) However, . . . only unreasonable searches and seizures are prohibited by the Constitution. (Citation omitted.) . . . [S]ubject to a few specifically established exceptions, searches conducted without a properly issued search warrant are per se unreasonable under the fourth amendment .... [One] of the recognized exceptions . . . [is] search incident to a lawful arrest .... The United States Supreme Court has limited the scope of reasonable search when made incident to an arrest to the area from which the arrested person might have obtained a weapon or some item that could have been used as evidence against him. (Citations omitted.) . . . [W]hether a search and seizure is unreasonable must be determined upon the facts and circumstances surrounding each individual case.\nState v. Cherry, 298 N.C. 86, 92-93, 257 S.E. 2d 551, 555-56 (1979), cert. denied, 446 US. 941, 100 S.Ct. 2165, 64 L.Ed. 2d 796 (1980).\nIt is the fact of the lawful arrest which establishes the authority to search, and ... in the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a \u2018reasonable\u2019 search under that Amendment.\nUnited States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235, 38 L.Ed. 2d 427, 441, 94 S.Ct. 467, 477 (1973).\nIt is uncontroverted that at the time of the search here a valid warrant for defendant\u2019s arrest for uttering a forged check was extant. His arrest thereunder thus was lawful, and the search was incident to the lawful arrest.\nThe area searched, defendant\u2019s pants pockets, was one \u201cfrom which [he] might have obtained a weapon. Cherry, 298 N.C. at 92, 257 S.E. 2d at 556. It was thus an area within \u201cthe scope of reasonable se\u00e1rch\u201d incident to the lawful arrest. Id.\nThe trial court\u2019s findings are supported by competent evidence. They sustain the conclusion that the evidence was seized as a result of a search incident to a lawful arrest and was thus admissible. Nothing in the \u201cfacts and circumstances surrounding [this] case\u201d compels contrary findings or a contrary conclusion. Id. The assignment of error to denial of the motion to suppress is thus overruled, and the judgment is\nAffirmed.\nJudges WEBB and WELLS concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "WHICHARD, Judge." } ], "attorneys": [ "Attorney General Edmisten, by Assistant Attorney General Reginald L. Watkins, for the State.", "William D. Acton, Jr., Assistant Public Defender, for defendant appellant." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. ROBERT LEE MACK\nNo. 8126SC1186\n(Filed 4 May 1982)\n1. Criminal Law \u00a7 148.1\u2014 denial of motion to suppress \u2014 allowance of belated appeal not \u201cappropriate relief\u201d\nThe right to perfect an appeal from an order denying a motion to suppress seized evidence for which the time allowed had long since expired was not \u201cappropriate relief\u201d within the power of the trial court to grant. G.S. 15A-1414; G.S. 15A-1415{b)(3); G.S. 15A-1448(aK3).\n2. Searches and Seizures \u00a7 36\u2014 arrest pursuant to valid warrant \u2014 search of defendant\u2019s pants pockets\nWhere there was an outstanding valid warrant for defendant\u2019s arrest for uttering a forged check, his arrest thereunder was thus lawful, a search of defendant\u2019s pants pockets was within the scope of a reasonable search incident to the lawful arrest, and bags of cocaine found in defendant\u2019s front pants pocket were seized as a result of a search incident to a lawful arrest and were admissible in evidence against defendant.\nAPPEAL by defendant from Snepp, Judge. Judgment entered 28 May 1980 in Superior Court, MECKLENBURG County. Heard in the Court of Appeals 9 April 1982.\nAttorney General Edmisten, by Assistant Attorney General Reginald L. Watkins, for the State.\nWilliam D. Acton, Jr., Assistant Public Defender, for defendant appellant." }, "file_name": "0163-01", "first_page_order": 193, "last_page_order": 198 }