State v. Bernard

NO. COA13-1470

NORTH CAROLINA COURT OF APPEALS

Filed: 2 September 2014

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

v. Guilford County
No. 09CRS094505
PATRICE ANTOINETTE BERNARD, 10CRS082813, 16, 19-46
Defendant.

Appeal by defendant from consolidated order entered 4 April

2013, order denying motion to suppress entered 27 June 2013, and

judgments entered 12 July 2013 by Judge David L. Hall in

Superior Court, Guilford County. Heard in the Court of Appeals

24 April 2014.

Attorney General Roy A. Cooper, III, by Assistant Attorney
General Joseph L. Hyde, for the State.

Hicks McDonald Noecker LLP, by Raymond D. Large III, for
defendant-appellant.

STROUD, Judge.

Defendant appeals her convictions for accessing a

government computer without authority, accessing computers, and

identity theft, arguing that her motions to suppress evidence

seized by the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State
 -2-
University police from a search of her home should have been

allowed. For the following reasons, we find no error.

I. Background

This case has an odd and somewhat disturbing background.

It began with a civil case and ended up as a criminal

prosecution of defendant, who was the plaintiff in the civil

case. In this criminal case, as a practical matter, North

Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (“A&T”)

used a criminal search warrant to obtain discovery from

defendant for possible use in its defense of the civil case she

had filed against A&T. Until 11 July 2008, defendant was an

employee of A&T, but her employment was terminated. On 28 July

2009, in the civil action, the trial court entered an order

addressing defendant’s “Petition for Judicial Review of the

Decision” before an administrative law judge which determined

that A&T had failed to inform her of her right to contest her

termination. The order found that “Petitioner [defendant]

received a letter from Respondent [A&T] dated June 11, 2008

advising that her employment would be terminated July 11, 2008”

and concluded that

[t]he letter to Petitioner [defendant] dated
June 11, 2008 fails to inform her of her
right to contest her termination based on
RIF; the procedure for contesting her
 -3-
termination, or the time limit for filing
her objection to the termination.
Accordingly, the notice was insufficient to
start the time limit for filing her
petition[.]

Accordingly, the trial court reversed the final decision of the

administrative law judge, which had dismissed defendant’s

contested case, and remanded the case for further proceedings.

About a month and a half after the civil case was remanded,

on or about 8 September 2009, “Detective M. Tillery, of North

Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Department

of Police & Public Safety” applied for a search warrant for Road

Runner Hold Company LLC (“Road Runner”) based upon the following

facts:

On September 3, 2009 I, Detective M.
Tillery, responded to 1020 Wendover Avenue,
Greensboro, NC, which is property of NC A&T
State University. The complainant, Mrs.
Linda McAbee, Vice Chancellor of Human
Resources at NC A&T SU, stated that someone
accessed her NC A&T SU email account without
her permission. The complainant stated that
the unknown and unauthorized user(s) created
an email which intended to deceive
Administrators of the university.

The complaint stated that the information
contained in the email addressed an issue
which NC A&T State University and
[defendant] Mrs. Patrice A. Bernard
(Petitioner) is/was in litigation in
Guilford County, North Carolina. The
complainant also stated that the
unauthorized email was sent on August 30,
 -4-
2009 at 18:49EST.

This affiant discovered through court
documents that the petitioner filed a
grievance in April 2008 in response to a
termination letter dated April 22, 2008.
According to court documents, the petitioner
[defendant] received a Reduction In Force
(RIF) letter indicating that her position
would be eliminated for funding reasons.
The petitioner filed an appeal. University
Administrators have been communicating with
Mrs. McAbee to resolve this issue through
legal means. Mrs. McAbee stated that
someone accessed her email, constructed a
bogus communication, and emailed the
document to University Administrators in an
effort to rehire or compensate the former
employee, [defendant] Mrs. Patrice Bernard.

Mrs. Lisa Lewis-Warren, Department of
Information Technology with NC A&T SU stated
that her department conducted forensic
analysis on Mrs. McAbee’s desktop computer
and the campus Network System. Mrs. Warren
stated that her department discovered that
the unauthorized communication was not sent
from Mrs. McAbee’s desktop computer. Mrs.
Warren stated that the NC A&T SU IT
Department analysis indicated that an
unauthorized person accessed Mrs. McAbee’s
university email account and other current
employees email accounts of NC A&T SU,
several times for several minutes from IP
Address 65.190.107.64, between August 28,
2009 through September 2, 2009.

This affiant knows that many individuals and
businesses obtain their access to the
Internet through businesses known as
Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”). ISPs
provide their customers with access to the
Internet using telephone or other
telecommunications lines; provide Internet
 -5-
email accounts that allow users to
communicate with other Internet users by
sending and receiving electronic messages
through the ISPs’ servers; remotely store
electronic files on their customers’ behalf;
and may provide other services unique to
each particular ISP.

Through this affiant[’s] training and
experience, when an ISP or other providers
uses dynamic IP addresses, the ISP randomly
assigns one of the available IP addresses in
the range of IP addresses controlled by the
ISP each time a user dials into the ISP to
connect to the Internet. The customer’s
computer retains that IP address for the
duration of that session, and the IP address
cannot be assigned to another user during
that period.

. . . .

Through this affiant[’s] training and
experience, a static IP address is an IP
address that is assigned permanently to a
given user or computer on a network. A
customer of an ISP that assigns static IP
addresses will have the same IP address
every time.

Through this affiant[’s] training and
experience, ISPs maintain records pertaining
to the individuals or companies that have
[a] subscriber account with it. Those
records could include identifying and
billing information account access
information in the form of log files, email
transaction information, posting
information, account application
information, and other information both in
computer data format and in written record
format. ISPs reserve and/or maintain
computer disk storage space on their
computer system for the use of the Internet
 -6-
service subscriber for both temporary and
long-term storage of electronic
communications with other parties and other
types of electronic data and files. E-mail
that has not been open is stored temporarily
by an ISP incident to the transmission of
the e-mail to the intended recipient,
usually within an area known as the home
directory.

Through my training and experience this
affiant knows that when an individual uses a
computer to obtain unauthorized access to a
victim computer over the internet, the
individual’s computer will generally serve
both as an instrumentality for committing
the crime, and also as a storage device for
evidence of the crime. The computer is an
instrumentality of the crime because it is
used as a means of committing the criminal
offense.

Based on these facts Detective Tillery requested a search

warrant to seize anything within the possession of Road Runner

regarding IP Address 65.190.107.64 between the dates of August

28, 2009 and September 2, 2009. The magistrate issued the

search warrant. On or about 15 September 2009, Detective Tillery

applied for an amended search warrant based on the same facts

and requesting the same information to be seized; again, the

magistrate issued the search warrant. On or about 15 September

2009, Time Warner Cable’s Subpoena Compliance Team, wrote to

Detective Tillery and informed him that the IP Address at issue

was assigned to defendant Patrice Bernard.
 -7-
On or about 16 September 2009, Detective Tillery again

applied for a search warrant but this time for defendant’s home,

vehicle, and her person. Detective Tillery’s factual basis for

the search warrant was the same as the Road Runner search

warrants except he added that “[t]he ISP, Road Runner Hold Co

LLC RRMA, identified IP Address 65.190.107.64 connection as

being assigned to [defendant] Patrice Bernard located at 2722

Chadbury Drive Greensboro, North Carolina. This is the

petitioner who is/was in litigation against NC A&T State

University in Guilford County, North Carolina.” The magistrate

issued the search warrant. On or about 23 September 2009,

Detective Tillery again applied for a search warrant based on

the same facts as in the other search warrants, this time

specifically requesting to search a computer seized during the

search of defendant’s home. The magistrate issued the search

warrant. All of the search warrants except for the one

regarding defendant’s computer were returned by Detective

Tillery.

On or about 30 September 2009, the magistrate issued a

warrant for defendant’s arrest for accessing a government

computer; this warrant was returned by Detective Tillery. On or

about 12 July 2010, the magistrate issued two other arrest
 -8-
warrants for felony accessing computers and identity theft;

these warrants were returned by A&T officers. On 20 September

2010, defendant was indicted for accessing a government computer

without authorization, felony accessing computers, and identity

theft.

On 22 February 2013, defendant filed a motion to suppress

“evidence obtained as a result of any supposed forensic

examination” of her computer because the information on her

seized computer was manipulated. On 4 March 2013, defendant

filed a supplement to her motion requesting suppression and/or

exclusion of everything seized in the search of her home due to

“the State’s tainted chain of custody[,]” particularly evidence

regarding the civil action against A&T, and requesting the

charges against her be dismissed. On 27 March 2012, defendant

filed another motion again requesting exclusion and suppression

of the evidence seized from her home and for dismissal of her

criminal case.

On 4 April 2013, the trial court entered a consolidated

order regarding all three of defendant’s aforementioned motions.

The trial court found the following facts which are not

challenged:

1. That on September 3rd, 2009
Detective M. Tillery responded to the Office
 -9-
of the Vice Chancellor of Human Resources at
North Carolina A & T State University
regarding a report from Vice Chancellor
Linda Mcabee who reported that someone had
accessed her email and sent unauthorized e-
mail transmissions from state owned
computers;

2. That Vice Chancellor Linda Mcabee
advised Detective Tillery that the defendant
was involved in pending civil litigation
with North Carolina A & T State University;

3. That Detective Tillery then
independently examined court documents and
learned of the nature and ongoing status of
the litigation;

4. That also on or about September 3rd
Lisa Lewis Warren, of the Department of
Information Technology at North Carolina A &
T State University, performed a forensic
analysis of Vice Chancellor Linda Mcabee’s
computer and other computers on the campus
network system;

5. That Lisa Lewis Warren discovered
e-mails not sent from the campus network
system computers but that had originated
from IP address 65.190.107.64;

6. That on September 8th, 2009
Detective Tillery obtained a search warrant
for the records of Road Runner Holding
Company, LLC and did send that search
warrant to Road Runner;

7. That on September 15th, 2009
Detective Tillery obtained another search
warrant for Road Runner and served that
search warrant on Road Runner.

8. That Detective Tillery made a
return on the second search warrant dated
 -10-
September 16th, 2009;

9. That Road Runner provided
Detective Tillery with information that the
subject IP address, 65.190.107.64, was
assigned to the defendant;

10. That based upon representations
made by Vice Chancellor Linda Mcabee and the
subscriber information provided by Road
Runner, Detective Tillery applied for and
received a search warrant for the search of
the defendant’s home located at 2722
Chadbury Drive in Greensboro, North
Carolina, on September 16th, 2009;

11. That Detective Tillery executed a
search warrant on the defendant’s home on
September 16th, 2009;

12. That Detective Tillery was
assisted during the execution of the search
warrant upon the defendant’s home by,
without limitations, Detective J. S.
Flinchum of the Greensboro Police
Department, as well as Officer Kimberly
Willis of the North Carolina A & T State
University Campus Police;

13. That a number of computers and
computer-related hardware were located and
seized from defendant’s home, as reflected
on Detective Tillery’s Inventory of Seized
Property dated September 16, 2009;

14. That Detective Tillery also
located a number of paper documents
pertaining to the lawsuit between North
Carolina A & T State University and the
defendant;

15. That these paper documents
included correspondence between her
attorney, David W. McDonald, and the
 -11-
defendant, relating to her litigation with
North Carolina A & T State University;

16. That although Detective Tillery
was aware of the pending lawsuit, he
nonetheless reviewed these paper documents
in an effort to locate evidence pertaining
to his criminal investigation;

17. That after reviewing these paper
documents, recognizing they pertain to
pending civil litigation, Detective Tillery
nonetheless seized these documents;

18. That at all times relevant to
Detective Tillery reviewing and seizing
these documents, Detective Tillery was
acting within the scope and course of his
employment with North Carolina A & T State
University;

19. That Detective Tillery processed
all seized property, including all computers
and the above described paper documents, at
North Carolina A & T State University Campus
Police Headquarters;

20. That after processing all property
seized from the defendant’s home Detective
Tillery stored all seized property in the
North Carolina A & T State University Campus
Police Evidence Management System;

21. That Detective Tillery checked out
the computer hardware seized from the
defendant’s home from North Carolina A & T
State University Campus Police Evidence
Management System and delivered same to
Detective Flinchum for purposes of a
computer forensic examination on September
23rd, 2009;

22. That Detective Flinchum performed
his forensic examination and returned the
 -12-
computer hardware to Detective Tillery, who
again entered the computer hardware into the
North Carolina A & T State University Campus
Police Evidence Management System;

23. That Detective Flinchum found no
evidence that the computer hardware seized
from defendant’s home had been accessed,
powered-on or manipulated in any way from
the time the hardware was seized until
Detective Flinchum began his forensic
examination on September 23rd, 2009[.]

The trial court denied defendant’s motions to suppress with the

exception of exclusion of “any and all correspondence of any

kind, whether electronic or in paper form, between the

defendant” and her attorney in the civil case.

On or about 30 May 2013, defendant filed another motion to

suppress evidence alleging A&T campus police were “acting

outside the scope of their jurisdiction as prescribed by law”

when they searched defendant’s private residence. On 27 June

2013, the trial court denied defendant’s last motion to suppress

finding:

1. That on September 16, 2009,
representatives of North Carolina A & T
State University Campus Police obtained a
search warrant for the search of the
defendant’s premises, located at 2722
Chadbury Drive, located in Greensboro, North
Carolina;

2. That representatives of the North
Carolina A & T State University Campus
Police, along with a representative from the
 -13-
Greensboro Police Department, executed the
above-referenced search warrant on September
16, 2009;

3. That pursuant to the above-
referenced search, representatives of the
North Carolina A & T State University Campus
Police and a detective with the Greensboro
Police Department seized various computers
and computer-related devices from the home
of the defendant, Ms. Patrice Bernard;

4. That Ms. Bernard’s property was
not located on real property owned by North
Carolina A & T State University;

5. That the property which was the
subject of the September 16, 2009, search
was occupied by defendant Patrice Bernard,
and located approximately six miles from the
real property owned by North Carolina A & T
State University;

6. That in providing probable cause
for issuance of the search warrant,
Detective Tillery with the North Carolina A
& T State University Campus Police
articulated probable cause for a violation
of North Carolina General Statute Section
14-454(b), which is commonly referred to as
“Accessing a Computer Without
Authorization”;

7. That the physical acts necessary
to commit the crime of Accessing a Computer
Without Authorization in this instance would
necessarily be committed not only at the
site where the computer(s) was/were located,
but also would be committed on the real
property where the affected computer server
was located;

8. That in this instance, the alleged
computer server at issue was located on real
 -14-
property owned by North Carolina A & T State
University.

The trial court denied defendant’s final motion to suppress.

The jury found defendant guilty of accessing a government

computer without authority (for the purpose of executing a

scheme or artifice to defraud), accessing computers, and

identity theft. The trial court suspended defendant’s sentences

on all of the convictions. Defendant appeals both the orders

denying her multiple motions to suppress evidence and her

judgments.

II. Waiver

The State contends defendant has waived her issues on

appeal due to her failure to provide this Court with a

transcript so that we could review whether defendant preserved

her arguments before the trial court. The State is correct that

“[i]n order to preserve an issue for appellate review, a party

must have presented to the trial court a timely request,

objection, or motion, stating the specific grounds for the

ruling the party desired the court to make if the specific

grounds were not apparent from the context.” N.C. App. P. Rule

10(a). But here, for reasons not entirely clear to this Court,

on 30 August 2013, the trial court entered an order requiring

the State to provide transcripts to defendant’s attorney and
 -15-
ordering “AOC to pay for the transcripts.” The State did not

appeal this order and thus had the responsibility, based upon

the trial court's order, to pay for and provide the transcripts.

Neither in the brief nor at oral argument has the State

explained why it failed to comply with the trial court's order.

In this unusual situation, the lack of complete transcripts

before this Court is the responsibility of the State and we

cannot penalize defendant for a failure to show that her

arguments were preserved in the transcript. We therefore will

not consider any arguments regarding waiver made by the State

since the accuracy of this argument cannot be confirmed without

transcripts, which the State, in violation of a trial court

order, failed to provide. In the interest of justice, we must

assume that defendant presented her arguments to the trial

court, and we will consider defendant’s arguments. See N.C.R.

App. P. 2.

III. Motions to Suppress

Defendant contends that the trial court erred in denying

her motions to suppress because the search warrant was not based

on sufficient probable cause; A&T campus police were without

jurisdiction to execute the search warrant on private property

and not on the A&T campus; and her Fourth Amendment rights were
 -16-
violated.

It is well established that the
standard of review in evaluating a trial
court’s ruling on a motion to suppress is
that the trial court’s findings of fact are
conclusive on appeal if supported by
competent evidence, even if the evidence is
conflicting. In addition, findings of fact
to which defendant failed to assign error
are binding on appeal. Once this Court
concludes that the trial court’s findings of
fact are supported by the evidence, then
this Court’s next task is to determine
whether the trial court’s conclusions of law
are supported by the findings. The trial
court’s conclusions of law are reviewed de
novo and must be legally correct.

State v. Johnson, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___, 737 S.E.2d 442, 445

(2013) (citation omitted).

A. Probable Cause

Defendant contends her motions to suppress should have been

allowed because the search warrant issued for her home, person,

and vehicle lacked probable cause on four grounds: (1) the

jurisdiction of A&T campus police, (2) hearsay, (3), bias, and

(4) over-breadth of the items to be seized.

A search warrant may be issued
only upon a finding of probable
cause for the search. This means a
reasonable ground to believe that
the proposed search will reveal
the presence upon the premises to
be searched of the object sought
and that such object will aid in
the apprehension or conviction of
 -17-
the offender.
In State v. Arrington, 311 N.C. 633,
319 S.E.2d 254 (1984), North Carolina
adopted the totality of the circumstances
test for examining whether information
properly before the magistrate provides a
sufficient basis for finding probable cause
and issuing a search warrant. The standard,
established by the United States Supreme
Court in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 76
L.Ed. 2d 527, reh'g denied, 463 U.S. 1237,
77 L.Ed. 2d 1453 (1983), is as follows:
The task of the issuing magistrate
is simply to make a practical,
common-sense decision whether,
given all the circumstances set
forth in the affidavit before him,
including the veracity and basis
of knowledge of persons supplying
hearsay information, there is a
fair probability that contraband
or evidence of a crime will be
found in a particular place. And
the duty of a reviewing court is
simply to ensure that the
magistrate had a substantial basis
for concluding that probable cause
existed.
When reviewing a magistrate’s determination
of probable cause, this Court must pay great
deference and sustain the magistrate’s
determination if there existed a substantial
basis for the magistrate to conclude that
articles searched for were probably present.

State v. Hunt, 150 N.C. App. 101, 104-05, 562 S.E.2d 597, 600

(2002) (citations, quotation marks, ellipses, and brackets

omitted).

We will address the issue of jurisdiction of the campus

police more fully below in the section regarding jurisdiction.
 -18-
Addressing defendant's other objections to the search warrant in

turn, we first note that defendant’s hearsay argument is without

merit. “[P]robable cause may be founded upon hearsay[.]” State

v. Severn, 130 N.C. App. 319, 322, 502 S.E.2d 882, 884 (1998)

(citations and quotation marks omitted). Defendant's next

objection is that Detective Tillery was biased against her. We

are not aware of any case law nor has defendant directed us

toward any indicating that the investigating officer’s negative

view or bias against a defendant may invalidate the application

for the search warrant. Regardless of the investigating

officer’s attitude, the question remains whether the facts as

presented to the magistrate establish “there is a fair

probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found

in a particular place[;]” Hunt, 150 N.C. App. at 105, 562 S.E.2d

at 600. There was information to support the issuance of the

search warrant, including a letter from Time Warner Cable to

Detective Tillery which identified defendant’s IP address as the

source of the fraudulent emails.

Lastly, as to the items to be seized, the trial court

ultimately agreed with defendant that any information regarding

her civil case was beyond the scope of the criminal

investigation and suppressed “any and all correspondence of any
 -19-
kind, whether electronic or in paper form, between the defendant

and” her attorney; thus, defendant actually received the very

relief she was seeking regarding any issues of over-breadth in

the search. Accordingly, we view defendant’s argument “that the

items sought to be seized would include items necessary to the

ongoing employment litigation” to be irrelevant, in light of the

fact that this evidence was suppressed. These arguments are

overruled.

B. Jurisdiction of Campus Police

The more difficult question is the jurisdiction of the

campus police to carry out a search of a private residence which

was not on the campus of A&T. Defendant argues that her motions

to suppress should have been allowed because the A&T campus

police acted beyond their statutory authority by executing a

search warrant at her home. “A search warrant may be executed

by any law-enforcement officer acting within his territorial

jurisdiction, whose investigative authority encompasses the

crime or crimes involved.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-247 (2009).

“The territorial jurisdiction of a campus police officer shall

include all property owned or leased to the institution

employing the campus police officer and that portion of any

public road or highway passing through such property or
 -20-
immediately adjoining it, wherever located.” N.C. Gen. Stat. §

116-40.5(a) (2009). Furthermore, North Carolina General

Statutes §§ 74E-6, 74G-6, and 160A-288 provide campus police

with the ability to cooperate with other law enforcement

agencies and enter into joint agreements and mutual aid

agreements that extend the campus police agencies jurisdiction.

See N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 74E-6(d); 74G-6(c); 160A-288 (2009). In

1998, A&T and the City of Greensboro entered into an “AGREEMENT

FOR POLICE COOPERATION AND MUTUAL AID” (“Agreement”) which

provided that:

The Campus Law Enforcement Agency will have
primary authority for investigation as
described in Paragraph 2.2, although such
investigation may require that officers of
the Campus Law Enforcement Agency make
inquiries and arrests beyond the perimeter
of Campus in the following cases:
An offense committed on Campus for
which [the] alleged perpetrator or
suspect is no longer present on campus,
whether or not officers are in active
and immediate pursuit[.]

Thus, the A&T campus police had authority to investigate

“[a]n offense committed on Campus" even if the suspect “is no

longer present on” the campus. Thus, the question is whether

defendant’s offense was "committed on Campus[.]” Defendant was

charged with accessing computers under North Carolina General

Statute § 14-454(b) and accessing a government computer without
 -21-
authority under North Carolina General Statute § 14-454.1(b);

both of these crimes are in Article 60 of the North Carolina

General Statutes. See N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 14-454; -454.1 (2009).

North Carolina General Statute § 14-453.2 provides, “Any offense

under this Article [60] committed by the use of electronic

communication may be deemed to have been committed where the

electronic communication was originally sent or where it was

originally received in this State. ‘Electronic communication’

means the same as the term is defined in G.S. 14-196.3(a).”

N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-453.2 (2009). North Carolina General

Statute § 14-196.3(a) defines “[e]lectronic communication” as

“[a]ny transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds,

data, or intelligence of any nature, transmitted in whole or in

part by a wire, radio, computer, electromagnetic, photoelectric,

or photo-optical system.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-196.3(a). Under

this broad definition of electronic communication, see id.,

defendant “sent” an “electronic communication” when she accessed

the email account of an employee of A&T and sent a false email.

N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-453.2; see N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 14-454; -

454.1. Under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-453.2, defendants “offense[s

were] committed on Campus” since she sent the email through the

A&T computer servers on the campus and pursuant to the
 -22-
Agreement, A&T campus police had jurisdiction to execute a

search warrant at her private home. This argument is

overruled.

C. Fourth Amendment

Lastly, defendant contends that her Fourth Amendment rights

were violated due to Detective Tillery’s egregious actions,

since he knew about her pending civil litigation against his

employer and quite deliberately chose to seize documents related

to that case, including confidential attorney-client

communications. While we agree that Detective Tillery’s conduct

was inappropriate and in intentional violation of defendant’s

attorney-client privilege, the fact remains that he had probable

cause for the search warrant and due to the Agreement with the

City of Greensboro, he also had the legal authority to execute

the search warrant. We understand defendant’s outrage that an

employee of her opponent in civil litigation--and a public

university of this state, no less--used his legal authority to

obtain and execute a search warrant against her, with the civil

litigation clearly being a primary focus of his interest.

Instead of deferring to the Greensboro Police Department to

handle the criminal investigation and prosecution, A&T used its

authority to obtain “discovery” in the civil lawsuit which it
 -23-
never would have been able to obtain in the civil case.1 The A&T

police searched defendant’s home, person, and vehicle for items

pertaining to both the civil case and the criminal matter, and

then Detective Tillery intentionally took items which he knew

were subject to attorney-client confidentiality and related only

to the civil case. But the trial court properly suppressed the

evidence which was subject to the attorney-client privilege, and

defendant has failed to raise any legal grounds which make

either the search warrant or its execution invalid. Because

defendant has no legal grounds to contend her Fourth Amendment

rights were violated, this argument is overruled.

IV. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we find no error.

NO ERROR.

Judges HUNTER, JR., Robert N. and DILLON concur.

1
Perhaps aware of the appearance of a conflict of interest and
with concern about their authority to execute the search
warrants off campus, the A&T police did have one Greensboro
officer accompany them for the search of defendant’s home, but
the Greensboro Police Department had no other involvement in
obtaining or execution of the search warrant, so far as our
record reveals.