The latest version of the Structured Sentencing Statistical Report from the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission is now available here. As always, it is a goldmine of sentencing data. It offers pathways for advocacy (how can you argue that a sentence should be longer or shorter than the average if you don’t know what the average is?), and a chance to reflect on how thousands of case-by-case decisions add up to a statewide policy and—not to be too dramatic—a conception of justice.
Remember that the report is based on sentencing episodes, defined as the most serious conviction for a defendant on a given day in court, so it may not always match up with other court system data centered around charges, cases, or convictions. This report covers data from Fiscal Year 2025, July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025, and therefore does not capture the impact of the legislative change made last year to remove the concurrent sentence default, discussed here, applicable for offenses committed on or after December 1, 2025.
Before getting into the details, I’ll point out that this year’s report was prepared based mostly on data entered into Enterprise Justice (87 counties were live by the end of the reporting period). The Commission noted that a substantial number of misdemeanors were missing key sentencing information, which resulted in less information about misdemeanor sentencing being included in the report. I suspect things will improve as everyone gets more familiar with the system, but the Commission, the AOC, and DAC are encouraging everyone to be sure to include things like prior record points and offense classifications for every judgment.
Let’s look at the numbers.
Total sentences. The total number of felony sentences was 26,798, down from 27,088 the previous year and 28,593 a decade ago. District 10 (Wake County) had the most felony sentences by a long shot—1,811 compared to the second most, 1,242, in District 26 (Mecklenburg). Appendix B, Table 1 of the report shows the number of convictions in each district per 1,000 adults. Class H–Level II is the most commonly used grid cell.
Jury trials are rare; bench trials continue to increase. There were 479 jury trials (down from 498 last year), accounting for 2 percent of felony convictions. Superior court bench trials continued their upward trend, having climbed from 4 to 8 to 20 over the past three years.
Class H and I guilty pleas in district court. The number of Class H and I felony guilty pleas entered in district court increased to 5,666, now accounting for 35 percent of all Class H and I felony convictions. The median time to sentencing for the pleas entered in district court was 4 months, compared to 12 months in superior court.
Community or Intermediate? The overall dispositional breakdown is exactly the same this year as it was last year (24 percent Community, 36 percent Intermediate, and 40 percent Active). However, that distribution likely overstates the number of Community dispositions by a lot. More than half of all Community judgments (over 3,000) come from grid cells that do not allow for a Community punishment. The issue may stem from the 2011 change to the definition of an Intermediate punishment, when the statute was amended to allow but no longer require imposition of specific probation conditions as part of an Intermediate punishment. It seems like judgments that do not include one of the former six intermediate conditions (special probation, intensive supervision, electronic house arrest, day-reporting center, a residential program, or a therapeutic court) are scored as Community even when they must be Intermediate according to the grid. On the other hand, it looks like 225 judgments counted as Community included special probation, even though a Community punishment is defined as one that does not include special probation. G.S. 15A-1340.11(2).
Death and life. The number of death sentences (1) and life without parole sentences (86) was exactly the same as last year. One of those life without parole sentences was for a second-degree murder by a prior record level V defendant. There were three life without parole sentences imposed for violent habitual felon convictions, and four life with parole sentences imposed for minors convicted of first-degree murder.
Habitual felon. There were 735 habitual felon convictions, down from 807 last year. Possession of firearm by felon was the most common single offense to be sentenced under the habitual felon law, but non-trafficking drug convictions were the most common category to be habitualized.
Drug trafficking. There were 775 convictions for drug trafficking, up from 638 last year and 510 the year before. Of those, 13 percent received probation and many more received a reduced term of imprisonment, indicating that the substantial assistance law is used in a lot of those cases.
Firearm enhancement. The firearm enhancement of G.S. 15A-1340.16A was not used at all last year.
I am grateful to the Commission staff for its careful work, particularly as we continue to adapt to an eCourts world.
