The North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission recently released its biennial Correctional Program Evaluation—known better as the Recidivism Report. The report, prepared in conjunction with the Division of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice, is available here. It covers defendants placed on probation or released from prison in Fiscal Year 2015.
Sentencing
Misdemeanor Prior Conviction Level
For felony sentencing, a defendant’s criminal history is scored as a “prior record level.” The analogous measure for misdemeanor sentencing is “prior conviction level.” There are important differences between the two measures.
Legal Financial Obligations Table
In my last post I wrote about some of the statutory options for providing relief from various criminal legal financial obligations. Several of my “friends” gave me a hard time about the post, saying the subject must be pretty complicated if I wasn’t able to compile it into some sort of table. Challenge accepted.
Relief from Monetary Obligations Aside from Waiver
Not all types of relief from a criminal monetary obligation trigger the statutory requirements for notice, hearing, and findings.
When Probation Ends
Knowing when probation begins is generally pretty easy. Figuring out when it ends can be a little trickier.
Field Trip to Community Corrections
This morning Jamie Markham and I loaded a passenger van with a group of district court judges who had come to the SOG for a week-long orientation course. We hauled them (through the snow) over to the offices of Community Corrections on Yonkers Road in Raleigh. Jamie lectured while I drove.
We took the judges over to probation headquarters so that in addition to learning about the law of probation from the expert (Jamie, obvi), they could meet, hear from, and question the people who set, write, and administer probation policy and who supervise probationers. The experience was amazing.
2018 Sentencing Commission Statistical Report Available
Spring is just around the corner. Daffodils. Daylight saving time. Filling out your bracket. And reading the annual Structured Sentencing Statistical Report for Felonies and Misdemeanors from the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission. Today’s post collects some of the highlights of the report.
Relief Guide 2017
Expunging criminal record information can be like removing ants from under your refrigerator. Just when you think you’ve eliminated all the ants/information, there’s another trail. That’s how a talented attorney in this field described the process in her article of the same name here. It’s also an apt description for figuring out the legal requirements, procedures, and forms for obtaining an expunction, in North Carolina and elsewhere. Here’s my latest effort, the 2017 Guide to Relief from a Criminal Conviction in North Carolina.