Carolina Criminal Defense & DUI Lawyer UpdatesThe Supreme Court of North Carolina’s opinion in North Carolina v. Rogers (Oct. 17, 2025) deserves careful study by 
criminal defense and DUI defense lawyers.
TL;DR Quick Take North Carolina v. Rogers reshapes how certain suppression motions may be litigated in North Carolina. The Supreme Court interpreted the 2011 “good faith” amendment to N.C.G.S. §15A-974 as significantly limiting the scope of the exclusionary rule, allowing evidence obtained through unlawful searches to be admitted if officers relied on objectively reasonable belief in the legality of their conduct. The decision narrows the path for defendants seeking suppression and marks a turning point in how trial courts evaluate Fourth Amendment violations.
Editor’s Note: The Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Rogers addressed good-faith reliance on a judicial order, not warrantless arrests or searches. The opinion leaves open whether the same reasoning will apply to warrantless seizures or probable-cause challenges. For now, Rogers appears to narrow the exclusionary rule only in the context of judicially authorized warrants and orders.
If you have questions about suppression motions, search warrants, or constitutional issues in your North Carolina criminal case, contact the Powers Law Firm in Charlotte to discuss your options. Bill Powers, a Board Certified Criminal Law Specialist through the National Board of Trial Advocacy / National Board of Legal Specialty Certification and recipient of the North Carolina State Bar’s Distinguished Service Award, has more than thirty years of courtroom experience and serves clients across North Carolina in complex criminal and DWI cases, including misdemeanor death by vehicle, felony serious injury by vehicle and felony death by vehicle charges. TEXT or call 704-342-4357 or email Bill@CarolinaAttorneys.com for more information.
I. The Statutory Framework of the Exclusionary Rule in NC
Section 15A-974 governs when evidence must be suppressed in North Carolina courts. It identifies two circumstances:
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When exclusion is constitutionally required; and
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When evidence is obtained in substantial violation of Chapter 15A, which codifies the state’s criminal procedure.
In 2011, the General Assembly amended the statute to add a proviso that evidence need not be suppressed for violations of Chapter 15A if the person committing the violation acted under the “objectively reasonable, good faith belief that the actions were lawful.”
The amendment mirrored the federal “good faith” principle from United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984), where the United State Supreme Court (USSC) held that evidence obtained through a warrant later found defective could still be admissible if the officer’s reliance was objectively reasonable.
When United States v. Leon was decided in 1984, it was the United States Supreme Court that created the federal good faith exception.
Congress did not amend the Fourth Amendment or enact a statute. Instead, the US Supreme Court itself crafted a judicially created exception to the exclusionary rule. The Court reasoned that exclusion was a remedy, not a constitutional right, and therefore could be limited by the judiciary when suppression would not serve deterrence.
Obtaining Video Evidence in North Carolina
By contrast, nearly three decades later, the North Carolina General Assembly took legislative action.
In 2011, it amended N.C.G.S. § 15A-974 to add a statutory good faith exception for violations of Chapter 15A.
That amendment was not a constitutional interpretation. It was an act of state legislation codifying a policy judgment similar to Leon.
The distinction is critical in North Carolina. Rogers:
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The federal good faith exception originates from judicial authority, a court interpreting the Fourth Amendment.
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The North Carolina good faith exception originates from legislative authority, the General Assembly enacting a statute governing state procedure.
The Rogers opinion is built around that tension.
The North Carolina Supreme Court emphasized that while the General Assembly can modify statutory remedies, it cannot alter constitutional ones.
Yet in the same breath, the Court applied Leon’s federal reasoning to uphold the evidence, effectively achieving the same result through judicial interpretation rather than legislative command.
II. The Question Before the Court: Is There a Good Faith Exception?
The issue in Rogers was not whether the good-faith exception exists in principle.
It was whether the statutory exception codified in § 15A-974(2) applies to constitutional violations referenced in § 15A-974(1). In other words, if an officer acts in good faith but violates the Fourth Amendment or Article I, Section 20 of the North Carolina Constitution, may the evidence nonetheless be admitted?
The Court of Appeals had held that the statutory exception extended to both prongs.
Judicial Independence in North Carolina
The NC Supreme Court disagreed. It concluded that the legislature’s amendment affected only statutory violations under subsection (2) and could not alter the consequences of constitutional violations under subsection (1).
On its face, that reasoning appears faithful to separation-of-powers principles,.
The legislature cannot rewrite constitutional remedies by statute.
The analytical difficulty lies in how the Court simultaneously applied the federal Leon standard to conclude that, even under the Constitution, exclusion was unnecessary because the officers acted reasonably.
United States v. Leon – Establishing the Good Faith Exception
In United States v. Leon (1984), the Supreme Court established the “good faith exception” to the exclusionary rule, allowing evidence obtained with a defective warrant to be admitted if officers acted in good faith. However, the Court identified four exceptions where the good faith exception does NOT apply:
- Knowing or Reckless Falsehood: When the magistrate was misled by information in the affidavit that the affiant knew was false or would have known was false except for reckless disregard of the truth.
- Magistrate Abandons Judicial Role: When the issuing magistrate wholly abandoned their judicial role and failed to perform their neutral and detached function (essentially acting as a “rubber stamp” for police).
- Affidavit Lacking Probable Cause: When the affidavit is “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable” – meaning no reasonable officer could believe probable cause existed based on the affidavit.
- Facially Deficient Warrant: When the warrant is so facially deficient in failing to particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized that officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid.
III. Parsing the Text – Exception to the Exclusionary Rule
The NC Supreme Court begins, as it should, with the statute’s text.
It observes that the good-faith clause follows the second prong of N.C.G.S. § 15A-974 and therefore, by placement, modifies only that subsection. That is a plausible reading under ordinary rules of syntax.
Yet a textualist inquiry cannot end with grammar.
When the legislature enacts a statute that explicitly references constitutional mandates in one clause and procedural violations in another, the interpretive task is to determine how the two interact.
The 2011 amendment was adopted in response to widespread debate over whether state courts should follow Leon in cases of defective warrants.
Legislative history suggests an intent to align North Carolina procedure with the federal rule, not to narrow it.
The Rogers opinion acknowledges this history but gives it little weight, emphasizing instead the structural independence of the constitutional and statutory subsections.
The result is a textual purity that achieves formal clarity at the expense of practical coherence.
IV. The Circular Logic of “No Violation” Due to “Good Faith”
Having confined the statutory good-faith clause to subsection (2), the Court proceeded to analyze whether the search violated either the Fourth Amendment or Article I, Section 20. It concluded that it did not.
The officers relied on a judicial order authorizing access to cell-site data, and the Court found that reliance “objectively reasonable.”
This reasoning converts the constitutional analysis into a mirror image of the good-faith inquiry the Court had just declared inapplicable by statute.
The question of whether a violation occurred merges with whether the officers’ reliance was reasonable. If the reliance is deemed reasonable, the constitutional violation is made functionally irrelevant.
That circularity is not unique to Rogers.
It reflects a broader national trend.
Courts increasingly treat reasonableness as both the measure of legality and the excuse for illegality.
The problem is that such reasoning collapses the analytic distinction between rule and remedy.
When good faith defines constitutionality, there is little left for suppression to deter.
V. North Carolina Constitutional Rights vs Federal Doctrine
The United States Supreme Court in Leon and its progeny treated the exclusionary rule as a judicially created remedy, not a constitutional command.
Therefore, the Court (USSC) reasoned, it could limit the rule’s reach when exclusion would not serve deterrence. The federal good-faith exception thus arises from the judiciary’s own authority to regulate remedies.
North Carolina’s approach before Rogers was more cautious.
In North Carolina v. Carter, 322 N.C. 709 (1988), the Court recognized a limited good-faith doctrine but grounded it in constitutional principle rather than judicial discretion.
The Carter court noted that suppression remains the traditional and effective”method of enforcing Article I, Section 20 of the North Carolina State Constitution.
Rogers subtly reverses that orientation.
While insisting that the legislature cannot alter constitutional law, it imports Leon’s judicial balancing test into state constitutional analysis.
The Court simultaneously restricts legislative authority and expands judicial discretion, leaving defendants with neither statutory nor constitutional refuge.
VI. The Problem of Institutional Drift & Judicial Activism
Some might say that Rogers exemplifies judicial restraint because it limits legislative reach.
Viewed through the lens of constitutional enforcement, the opinion enlarges judicial authority at the expense of both the legislature and the accused.
It repositions the Court not as guardian of constitutional limits but as arbiter of governmental reasonableness.
That shift has institutional consequences.
Probable cause challenges depend on the premise that courts will scrutinize warrants and orders with meaningful rigor.
When good faith becomes the touchstone, scrutiny gives way to deference.
Magistrates, officers, and prosecutors will be relegated to operating within a self-validating loop.
The issuance of an order establishes good faith, and good faith confirms the validity of the order.
The doctrine therefore encourages procedural conformity rather than constitutional fidelity.
It rewards compliance with form over engagement with substance.
The constitutional question, whether the search invaded a protected interest without probable cause, fades behind an administrative assurance that everyone acted reasonably – Bill Powers, DWI Defense Lawyer
VII. What the NC Suprme Court Did Not Say
The most revealing aspect of Rogers may be what it left unsaid.
The opinion does not address how its reasoning affects motions to suppress based on defective affidavits, misrepresentations in warrant applications, or reliance on outdated precedent.
It also does not formally define the threshold at which “good faith reliance” ceases to be “objectively reasonable.”
The existence of a good faith exception to the Exclusionary Rule virtually ensures that most suppression motions will fail as a matter of course.
A magistrate’s signature, no matter how perfunctory, now carries presumptive constitutional weight.
VIII. The Emerging Pattern: Vitiating the Exclusionary Rule
The Rogers opinion continues a gradual realignment within North Carolina’s appellate courts, one that prioritizes procedural reasonableness over automatic exclusion of evidence.
The movement is not the result of indifference to constitutional protections but of a growing judicial preference for measured remedies that preserve convictions when misconduct is viewed as inadvertent or technical.
This philosophy echoes broader national trends since United States v. Leon and Herring v. United States, where the exclusionary rule was reframed as a tool of deterrence rather than an intrinsic constitutional guarantee.
North Carolina’s recent jurisprudence appears to reflect that same logic, applying good-faith exceptions more readily and limiting suppression to cases involving clear, intentional violations of law.
Whether this evolution strengthens confidence in the justice system or diminishes accountability depends on how faithfully courts continue to test the limits of reasonableness.
What is clear is that Rogers marks another step toward a more deferential model towards law enforcement, one that relies on trust in the police and procedural regularity rather than exclusion as the primary safeguard against unlawful searches and seizures.
IX. The Doctrinal Cost of Ending the Exclusionary Rule
When suppression becomes the exception rather than the rule, the Fourth Amendment risks becoming declarative rather than protective.
Defendants may still claim a violation, but without suppression, the right carries no consequence.
A right that depends on the self-discipline of the State is not a right in any meaningful sense.
For defense lawyers, Rogers delivers a sobering message.
To prevail on a motion to suppress, you must now show not only that the search was unlawful, but that no reasonable officer could have believed otherwise.
That standard approaches futility.
The larger effect is institutional. North Carolina’s exclusionary rule, once a judicial tool to deter government overreach, now mirrors the most deferential form of federal good-faith doctrine.
The courts have preserved the rhetoric of rights while discarding their practical enforcement.
The Future of the Exclusionary Rule in North Carolina
Some may view Rogers as a pragmatic response to the realities of digital policing and the pressures of modern caseloads. Courts must operate in the world as it exists, not in abstract theory. Yet the Constitution was written to slow the exercise of power, to demand reasons before the State acts.
By elevating good faith over judicial exclusion, Rogers quietly reverses that order. The opinion is thoughtful and precise, but its effect is unmistakable. The protection against unreasonable searches now depends less on judicial oversight and more on an officer’s proclaimed good faith.
Whether described as restraint or redefinition, the result is the same. The line between constitutional safeguard and procedural efficiency grows thinner.
For defense lawyers and defendants alike, the message is clear. The battleground has shifted from suppression to persuasion, from contesting admissibility to challenging credibility.
The 4th Amendment right still exists, but its enforcement now requires deeper preparation, sharper cross-examination, and an unflinching record on appeal.
If you’re confronting search-and-seizure issues or planning a motion to suppress in a North Carolina criminal case, it helps to understand how Rogers changes the landscape. Contact Bill Powers at the Powers Law Firm in Charlotte to discuss how these developments may affect your case strategy. Call or TEXT 704-342-4357 or email Bill@CarolinaAttorneys.com for more information about defending your constitutional rights in today’s courts. Powers Law Firm helps clients in the Charlotte region, including Mecklenburg, Union, Iredell, Gaston, Lincoln, and Rowan counties North Carolina.