Articles in the Sentencing category - Page 29 of 63

Probationers generally cannot have guns. What other weapons can they not have?

Many of you have received one of those letters: a notice from the N.C. Department of Public Safety, Division of Adult Correction (DAC), Section of Combined Records, seeking “clarification” of a judgment. Combined Records audits judgments as they come in, identifying issues and sentencing errors and bringing them to the attention of the court system. Today’s post considers the legal basis for this review, and some of the issues it raises.

The maximum punishment for driving while impaired in violation of G.S. 20-138.1 increased from two to three years in 2011. As a result, defendants convicted of misdemeanor DWI and sentenced at the most serious level—Aggravated Level One—are prohibited from possessing firearms by federal law. That’s because federal law prohibits firearm possession by a person who has been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, though state law misdemeanors that are punishable by a term of imprisonment of two years or less are excluded from this category of disqualifying convictions. Because North Carolina law sets out a single offense of driving while impaired, which may be punished at varying levels, rather than six separate offenses, there is a question as to whether any defendant convicted of misdemeanor DWI on or after December 1, 2011 may lawfully possess a firearm, regardless of the level at which the defendant was actually punished.

Today’s post is a video explaining the rules for extending probation in North Carolina. It covers the two different types of extensions, and answers the question of how many times a case may be extended, and for how long. I hope you’ll take a look.

It’s time to post an updated sex offender and monitoring flow chart. I was going to do it last week, but I’m glad I didn’t. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed North Carolina’s appellate courts on an issue that may impact the constitutionality of SBM. The new chart, available here, incorporates Grady v. North Carolina and includes several other changes.

Spring is upon us, and today’s post addresses the top five DWI sentencing questions of the season. 

When a defendant is convicted of more than one crime, there are decisions to be made about how the sentences for those convictions will fit together. Generally speaking, they may be consolidated for judgment, allowed to run concurrently, or set to run consecutively. If at least one of those judgments suspends a sentence and places the defendant on probation, the judge has an additional decision to make regarding when probation begins.

A defendant is sentenced to 10–21 months for a Class H felony. How much time will he or she actually serve? What about a Class D felon sentenced to 59–83 months?

Advanced Supervised Release was created in 2011. Today’s post is a video that explains who is eligible for ASR, how to calculate an ASR date, how to fill out an ASR judgment, and what the law means for the defendant as a practical matter.

Suppose a crime victim offers a reward related to a crime—money for information leading to the return of stolen property, or perhaps information leading to the apprehension of an assailant. If the reward works and leads to a person’s conviction, may the court order the defendant to pay the victim restitution for the reward? Today’s post considers that question, and the related question of whether it is proper to order restitution to third parties that offer rewards, like crime stoppers.