North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

For many years North Carolina law has prohibited insurers from receiving restitution directly from criminal defendants. That prohibition will end on December 1, 2016.

One of the first posts I wrote on this blog was about the punishment for criminal contempt. The post included a discussion about whether sentences for contempt could be run consecutively—something our appellate courts hadn’t yet ruled on at the time. In State v. Burrow, decided last week, the court of appeals approved a trial court’s orders sentencing a defendant to six consecutive 30-day terms of imprisonment for contempt.

State v. Hancock, decided this week by the court of appeals, sheds new light on violations of the commit no criminal offense probation condition involving a pending charge.

Prior posts looked at the new probation condition requiring a waiver of extradition and the new, new rules for jail credit for CRV. Today’s post covers the rest of this year’s most significant legislation related to probation, post-release supervision, and parole.

A legislative session wouldn’t be complete without a new jail credit rule for confinement in response to violation (CRV).

In Session Law 2016-77, the General Assembly made some changes the law of probation, post-release supervision, and parole. Though styled as “an act to amend provisions of the Justice Reinvestment Act,” the latest legislation makes some changes that go beyond the 2011 JRA. Today’s post summarizes one of the changes: a new requirement for supervised felony probationers to make a prospective waiver of extradition.

May the judge sentencing a conviction now order that it run consecutively to sentences the defendant might get in the future?

Today’s post is an update to the sex offender registration and monitoring flow chart. (It’s really more of a cheat sheet than a flow chart, but after seven years of calling it a flow chart—the first version appeared in 2009—I’m going to stick with it.)

When a person has so much jail credit that he has served his entire sentence of imprisonment, may he nonetheless be sentenced to probation? In other words, may a court sentence someone to probation when there is no sentence left to suspend?

Today’s post gives my best answers to a few frequently asked questions about appeals of probation violation hearings.