North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

When a person’s probation is revoked, his or her suspended sentence is generally activated in the same manner in which it was entered by the sentencing judge. But a lot […]

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court decided Hall v. Florida, a case about the death penalty and intellectual disability. It’s an important case with implications for North Carolina. Background. In […]

The county is generally responsible for the cost of emergency medical care for jail inmates. G.S. 153A-224(b). It’s not always clear what constitutes an emergency, but state regulations include things […]

The General Assembly convened earlier today for its short session. While lawmakers’ primary focus doubtless will be the state budget, the legislature may again consider ways to address the persistent […]

When I talk about the “commit no criminal offense” probation condition, it’s almost always about one particular issue. May a pending charge (or even uncharged conduct) be considered as a […]

The most serious level of misdemeanor DWI is Aggravated Level One, which I generally refer to as Level A1.  A defendant convicted of driving while impaired is subject to sentencing […]

Extraordinary mitigation—or, more precisely, dispositional deviation for extraordinary mitigation—under G.S. 15A-1340.13(g) is a way for the court to impose a probationary sentence for a defendant whose offense class and prior […]

The School of Government’s mobile app for Structured Sentencing is available for download. The version for Apple devices—iPhone and iPad—is in the iTunes App Store, linked here. (You’ll need at […]

A probationer is entitled to a hearing on an alleged probation violation, unless the hearing is waived. G.S. 15A-1345(e). What does it mean to waive a probation violation hearing? As […]

I was on spring break last week, which meant I had lots of time for uninterrupted reading while my kids entertained themselves at the pool. Okay, maybe not. Despite being […]