A UNC School of Government Blog
Jamie Markham 
I was at a meeting at the Department of Correction yesterday talking about some of the changes made by the Justice Reinvestment Act (JRA, summarized here). One of the big changes is an expansion of the conditions a probation officer may add through delegated authority under G.S. 15A-1343.2(e) and (f). In talking about those changes, … Read more
Nationwide, the biggest criminal law news of the week comes out of Florida, where Casey Anthony was found not guilty of the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee. I personally did not follow the case closely, but many of those who did were apparently surprised by the result. Anthony was convicted of four counts of … Read more
For a variety of reasons, it is sometimes helpful to know the maximum punishment applicable to a particular type of offense. For instance, when charging a defendant with possession of a firearm by a felon, the indictment should set forth the maximum penalty by which the defendant’s prior felony offense was punishable. For some defendants … Read more
The Supreme Court of the United States decided Blakely v. Washington in 2004, holding that any fact (other than a prior conviction) that increases a defendant’s sentence beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt or admitted to by the defendant. 542 U.S. 296 (2004). Before Blakely—when it … Read more
Jeff has entrusted me with the virtual keys to the blog while he is away on vacation, and today will be my first crack at rounding up the week’s criminal law news. As always there’s a lot going on! 1. According to the annual summary report of uniform crime reporting data released this week, crime in … Read more
The Governor signed the Justice Reinvestment Act (S.L. 2011-192 (H 642)) into law last week. It makes substantial changes to the law of sentencing and corrections in North Carolina—easily the most sweeping changes to Structured Sentencing since its passage in 1994. I’m working on a detailed bulletin on how our sentencing laws will operate after … Read more
Back in April I wrote this post about a pending bill (H 772) that was intended to bring North Carolina into compliance with the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). In its initial form, it appeared the bill would have done all the things North Carolina needed to do (and then some, perhaps) … Read more
One of my colleagues recently tipped me off to a great article in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Dr. Jennifer G. Clarke entitled Perinatal Care for Incarcerated Patients: A 25-Year-Old Woman Pregnant in Jail. 305 JAMA 923 (2011). I wish I could share the full article but it does not appear to … Read more
In State v. Bowden, 193 N.C. App. 597 (2008), disc. rev. improvidently allowed, 363 N.C. 621 (2009), and Jones v. Keller, 364 N.C. 249 (2010), our appellate courts considered the sentence length and sentence credits applicable to a group of inmates with offense dates from the 1970s. They committed their crimes at a time when … Read more
I’ve mentioned the big legislative changes pending in HB 642 (the Justice Reinvestment Act, which was discussed in House Appropriations this morning), but I haven’t written about an important criminal bill that’s already been signed into law. It’s Session Law 2011-62 (HB 270), Amend Conditions of Probation, which the Governor signed on May 3. The … Read more