North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Do DWI sentences really get cut in half? Can DWI inmates be paroled? What happens when the minimum and maximum sentence for a DWI are the same? These questions and more are answered in today’s […]

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North Carolina has a lot of habitual offender laws: habitual felon, violent habitual felon, armed habitual felon, habitual breaking and entering, habitual impaired driving, and habitual misdemeanor assault. A question […]

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If you’ve been dragging your feet about having an old DWI expunged, you had better hurry up. A law enacted last week removes convictions for offenses involving impaired driving from […]

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At a recent conference, a judge confessed to me that he and his fellow judges drive the clerks crazy because they all pronounce judgment differently. They use different words to […]

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Not many sentences come from the aggravated range—four percent in Fiscal Year 2013/14, according to the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission. But when you use the aggravated range, […]

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The United States Supreme Court just decided a capital case about intellectual disability, formerly known as mental retardation. In some ways, it’s an “error correction” case that doesn’t break new […]

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Last year I posted a chart summarizing the proper place of confinement (jail, prison, or Statewide Misdemeanant Confinement Program) for various types of imprisonment. The chart covers active sentences, split […]

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Courts around the country have struggled to address inappropriate cell phone usage by jurors. Some judges have used their contempt powers to deal with the issue. In Oregon, a judge […]

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I get a lot of mail from inmates. Lately, many of them have written to express their surprise upon being told by prison officials—for the first time—that they will have […]

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It has been a little over a year since we announced the availability of the School of Government’s mobile app for Structured Sentencing. The app has been downloaded over one […]

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