North Carolina Criminal Law

I spent a few minutes this morning looking at death penalty data. As most readers know, North Carolina hasn’t had an execution since 2006, as a result of litigation over […]

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Most impaired drivers arrive at their destinations without harming themselves or anyone else.  And few such drivers are actually stopped by police.  That may explain why eight percent of people […]

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My next few posts will discuss this session’s legislative changes related to sentencing and corrections. Today’s post covers some pending changes related to confinement in response to violation (CRV, sometimes […]

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Among the two dozen or so states that have participated in Justice Reinvestment, North Carolina has become something of a darling. The goal of the initiative (summarized in this infographic) […]

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Today’s post picks up where my last post left off, with answers (my answers, at least) to more frequently asked questions about post-release supervision. What will life on PRS be […]

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There are almost 7,000 people on post-release supervision in North Carolina today. That’s up from around 2,000 in 2011, before the law was changed to require post-release supervision for all […]

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The General Assembly just made it a whole lot easier to determine whether a defendant imprisoned for a misdemeanor DWI conviction will serve his or her sentence in jail or […]

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Some inmates are serving long sentences for older crimes that would receive a much shorter sentence under today’s law. It is clear at this point that they cannot have today’s […]

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North Carolina’s first attempt at a presumptive sentencing law was the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA). The law was in effect for offenses committed from July 1, 1981 to September 30, […]

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Most people can get behind the idea that inmates should, if able, do some sort of work during their incarceration. By statute, “[i]t is declared to be the public policy […]

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