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2023 Appropriations Act Enacts Significant Court-Related Changes

Several provisions of the 2023 Appropriations Act (H 259) ratified by the General Assembly last week (which is expected to become law on October 3 without the Governor’s signature) affect the judiciary. The biggest news item for judges may be the substantial salary increases included in the two-year budget. At the end of the biennium, salaries for district court judges will have increased by 24 percent (to $162,620) and salaries for superior court judge by 13 percent to ($169,125). The salary for the Chief Justice will increase by 20 percent over this period (from $168,980 to $203,073), and salaries for associate justices and court of appeals judges will have the same percentage increase. Many argue that those kinds of adjustments are long overdue. A 2020 ranking of judicial salaries by the National Center for State Courts placed North Carolina judicial salaries in the bottom half of all states and the District of Columbia. Supreme court associate justice salaries were the lowest of those measured, coming in at number 44. But this post is not about salaries; instead it will focus on other court system changes enacted by H 259.

I’ll start with some different numbers.

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State v. Wilson: Was the Defendant Seized When He Stopped Upon the Officer’s Signal?

Joshua Wilson had just pulled his truck out of the driveway of a residence in Burlington when he saw a police car parked in the road in front of him. A uniformed officer had gotten out of the car and was walking toward the residence. When the officer saw Wilson, he waived his hands back and forth in the air to tell Wilson to stop his car. Wilson stopped. The officer approached the truck on the driver’s side. The window was down, and he smelled the odor of alcohol. Wilson was arrested shortly thereafter for driving while impaired. The question on appeal was whether he was seized by the officer when he stopped his truck.

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