North Carolina Criminal Law

The Justice Reinvestment Act made conditional discharge under G.S. 90-96(a) mandatory for eligible, consenting defendants. The law was amended last year to make it discretionary again for offenses committed on […]

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This morning’s New York Times included an opinion piece by Bill Keller entitled America on Probation. It talks about the recent movement away from incarceration as the cornerstone of the […]

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From 1995 to 2009, North Carolina had two sentencing grids—one for felonies, one for misdemeanors. That was it. Then the grid was amended in 2009. And 2011 (with special rules […]

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A DWI conviction will cost you. Let’s take the case of a typical defendant who has never before been charged with or convicted of DWI. I’ll call him Forrest Firsttimer. […]

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May community service fees be waived? I suspect some of you are thinking “I hope so, because they just were,” or something along those lines. It turns out to be […]

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North Carolina has a law allowing certain prison inmates to be released early for medical reasons. It was passed in 2008, largely in response to concerns that a small number […]

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Last week I wrote a post about “using up” jail credit that generated some helpful comments. Thanks! I’m hoping for a repeat performance with today’s post, which is about another […]

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For a presentation I did recently on termination of sex offender registration requirements, I decided to see what requirements and restrictions a person is subject to under North Carolina law if convicted of an offense subject to sex offender registration.

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Suppose a person is held in jail for 20 days on two pending misdemeanor charges, Charge A and Charge B. For one reason or another, Charge A results in a […]

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It is a Thanksgiving tradition for the president to pardon a turkey. This year, CNN reports, it was a Minnesota bird named Popcorn. But is executive clemency limited to avians? […]

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