The North Carolina General Statutes require the senior resident superior court judge to, in consultation with the chief district court judge or judges, issue a local bail policy. G.S. 15A-535(a). But doing so is no easy matter given the many statutory rules and exceptions and areas for discretionary policy choices. Christopher Tyner and I have tried to facilitate that task, with a North Carolina Model Local Bail Policy. We first issued the Model Policy in the Spring and we just posted an updated version, incorporating the latest legislative changes to the state’s bail statutes. The Model Policy can be found here; it’s the first item under “Implement.” Read on for details.
Jessica Smith
Model Implementation Plan for New First Appearances Required by S.L. 2021-138
I recently posted, on the UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab website, a model implementation plan designed to help stakeholders comply with S.L. 2021-138. That law requires first appearances for all in-custody defendants within 72 hours after the defendant is taken into custody or at the first regular session of district court in the county, whichever occurs first. The new law becomes effective December 1, 2021 and applies to criminal processes served on or after that date.
NC Court Appearance Project: Introducing Our Sites
We recently invited North Carolina jurisdictions to apply to participate in the NC Court Appearance Project. The project is supported by the UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab and The Pew Charitable Trusts. We’re excited to announce our three project sites: New Hanover, Orange, and Robeson Counties. We will be supporting stakeholders in these jurisdictions as they examine the scope and impact of missed court dates and explore ways to improve court appearance rates and responses to missed court dates. Each site has a project team composed of local judges, the DA, the Public Defender or a defense representative, the sheriff, the clerk of court and other officials. Because we’re interested to help stakeholders explore solutions that can work across diverse jurisdictions, we’re happy to have participation from an urban county, a suburban county, and a rural county. Thanks to everyone that applied—we wish we could have included all of you!
Announcing North Carolina Court Appearance Project
The UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab and The Pew Charitable Trusts and invite North Carolina jurisdictions to apply to participate in the NC Court Appearance Project. Pew and the Lab will offer free technical assistance for up to three North Carolina jurisdictions interested in examining the scope and impact of missed court dates and exploring ways to improve court appearance rates and responses to missed court dates. Because Pew and the Lab adhere to a non-partisan, evidence-based approach to criminal justice policy, this project will be grounded in data, research, and stakeholder collaboration and priorities.
Virtual Court Proceedings—North Carolina Court Actors Weigh In
During the COVID-19 pandemic, criminal court systems moved to virtual proceedings to maintain essential court operations while minimizing the spread of COVID-19. To understand more about that transition and the lessons it holds for the future, we surveyed North Carolina trial judges, prosecutors, defenders, and clerks of court about virtual court. Our survey included questions about changes to court proceedings during the pandemic, the benefits of and concerns about virtual court, best practice suggestions for virtual proceedings, support for various virtual proceedings, experiences with using various technology platforms, and other aspects of virtual proceedings. We received responses from 182 people (Figure 1) from all 100 North Carolina counties.
Figure 1. Survey Respondents’ Current Role in the Criminal Justice System
Our full report is available here. In this post we summarize some top line results.
New Orange County, North Carolina Bail Reform Initiatives
In late 2020 and early 2021, stakeholders in Orange County, North Carolina implemented new bail reform initiatives. The new initiatives build on earlier efforts. Specifically, stakeholders already had funded a county pretrial services program; adopted an empirical risk assessment tool to inform judges’ pretrial decision-making; established a “strike order court,” affording relief from court non-appearances in appropriate cases; instituted pre-arrest diversion with law enforcement support; and established specialized courts to more effectively address the needs of those who enter the criminal justice system because of underlying issues such as poverty, homelessness, substance use, and mental health concerns. Additionally, local police departments and the sheriff’s office had implemented new policing practices, such as citation in lieu of arrest, to promote the county’s pretrial goals. And in 2018, the Orange County Board of County Commissioners approved a resolution supporting the 3DaysCount initiative, a national effort to improve community safety by applying common sense solutions to pretrial justice issues. Notwithstanding these efforts and actions and the statutory mandate that conditions other than secured bond must be imposed unless the judicial official finds certain factors, G.S. 15A-534(b), data showed that secured bonds continued to be the most common condition of pretrial release used in the county, even in misdemeanor cases. Stakeholders also reported concerns that low-risk individuals were being unnecessarily detained pretrial on money bonds they could not pay.
Changes in North Carolina Jail Populations During COVID-19
We have issued a series of reports on North Carolina state and county-level jail occupancy rates, including one in October 2020 focusing on changes in total county and statewide jail occupants during the COVID-19 pandemic (our earlier reports are here, here and here). This report provides updated jail population numbers through November 2020. Please refer to our prior reports for information on data sources and calculations.
Promising Results in Two New Bail Reform Evaluation Reports
On January 2020, North Carolina’s Judicial Districts 21 (Forsyth County) and 2 (Washington, Beaufort, Martin, Tyrrell, and Hyde counties) implemented bail reform. In both jurisdictions, reforms were implemented after a collaborative, consensus process. Participants included judges, prosecutors, defenders, magistrates, clerks, law enforcement leaders and others. Judicial District 21 adopted a new decision-making tool to be … Read more
Pilot Sites Chosen for North Carolina’s Citation Project
Back in July I wrote a post (here) inviting North Carolina police departments to apply to participate as pilot sites for The Citation Project. Executed by the UNC School of Government’s Criminal Justice Innovation Lab and the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police, The Citation Project seeks to improve policing practices through implementation and rigorous evaluation of a model citation in lieu of arrest policy. Four pilots sites have been selected. They include: Winston-Salem, Wilmington, Apex and Elizabeth City.
Changes in North Carolina Jail Populations During COVID-19
We have issued a series of reports on North Carolina state and county-level jail occupancy rates, including one in July 2020 focusing on changes in jail occupancy rates during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic (here, here and here). In this report, we switch our reporting metric and focus on changes in occupants as opposed to occupancy rates. We also provide a new tool for stakeholders to examine changes in county jail populations during the COVID-19 period.