A UNC School of Government Blog
Jamie Markham 
Last year, the Onion (my favorite news satire outfit) ran an article headlined “Nation Shudders at Large Block of Uninterrupted Text.” It’s a pretty funny take on modern society’s overreliance on things like bullet points and YouTube to process information. The headline made me think of G.S. 90-96. As most readers know, G.S. 90-96 allows … Read more
I wrote recently about how the Justice Reinvestment Act changes North Carolina’s existing habitual felon law (you can read that post here). This post examines a new recidivist offender statute created by the act: the status offense of habitual breaking and entering. Under the new law, set out in G.S. 14-7.25 through -7.31, a person … Read more
As part of the Justice Reinvestment project, analysts from the Council of State Governments (CSG) looked at how the habitual felon law is used in North Carolina. In general, the analysts recognized the law as a valuable tool for prosecutors (its use was on the rise between 2005 and 2009), but they also cited some … Read more
As I mentioned in a prior post, the Justice Reinvestment Act (S.L. 2011-192) creates a new set of “community and intermediate probation conditions” that can be ordered in any Structured Sentencing probation case. One of the new community and intermediate conditions, available for defendants on probation for offenses committed on or after December 1, 2011, … Read more
Under G.S. 14-208.12A, a sex offender can petition the superior court for removal from the sex offender registry “[t]en years from the date of initial county registration.” Many times I have been asked whether time spent on another state’s registry counts toward the 10-year minimum registration period in North Carolina. In other words, does the … Read more
When analysts from the Council of State Governments studied North Carolina’s sentencing laws and correctional system, one of their key findings was that revoked probationers account for a lot of new entries to prison each year—more than half. The Justice Reinvestment Act (S.L. 2011-192) responds to that finding in several ways, one of which is … Read more
Under Structured Sentencing, there are two types of non-active sentences: community punishment and intermediate punishment. Intermediate punishment is supervised probation plus at least one of six specific conditions of probation (special probation, residential program, electronic house arrest, intensive supervision, day reporting center, and drug treatment court). G.S. 15A-1340.11(6). A community punishment is any other non-active … Read more
Under existing law, the basic rules for where a sentence should be served are as follows: Misdemeanors, 90 days or less. If a sentence imposed for a misdemeanor is 90 days or less, it generally must be served in the jail. G.S. 15A-1352(a). There are exceptions for when the jail is overcrowded or the inmate … Read more
The Justice Reinvestment Act (S.L. 2011-192) creates a new program called Advanced Supervised Release (ASR). Through it, certain inmates will be eligible for release from prison before serving their minimum sentence. According to literature prepared by the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center, a non-profit group that helped develop the legislation, the purpose of … Read more
It has long been the rule in North Carolina that all that is required for a judge to revoke probation is a finding that the defendant has violated a valid condition of probation willfully or without lawful excuse. State v. Hewett, 270 N.C. 348 (1967). After December 1, 2011, there will, under the Justice Reinvestment … Read more