A UNC School of Government Blog
Under the Justice Reinvestment Act, a probation officer may, through delegated authority, impose a short period of jail confinement in response to a violation of a court-imposed probation condition. The officer may impose up to six days of confinement per month during any three separate months of a period of probation. The time must be … Read more
North Carolina’s structured sentencing grid did not change from 1995 to 2009. Since then it has changed twice, once for offenses committed on or after December 1, 2009 (discussed here), and again (under the Justice Reinvestment Act) for offenses committed on or after December 1, 2011. With that recent history in mind, an important first … Read more
A frequently asked question of late is whether a judge may still impose special probation (a split sentence) in a probation case. Apparently the question arises out of a sense that the new forms of confinement created by the Justice Reinvestment Act—short term confinement for 2–3 days (“quick dips”) and confinement in response to violation … Read more
Y’all may be tired of reading about sentencing in impaired driving cases, particularly if you’ve read this entire bulletin. But I’m hoping the reader-market will bear a few more sentencing-related posts since I’ve not tired of writing about the subject. Recently, in a session I taught about sentencing under G.S. 20-179, a lively discussion broke … Read more
In 2012, a person on supervised probation for an offense that occurred before December 1, 2011 moves to another state without permission. Months later he is arrested there and brought back to North Carolina for a violation hearing. May he be revoked for absconding? I don’t think so. This post discusses why. Effective for offenses … Read more
Under G.S. 15A-1340.14(e), a defendant’s prior out-of-state convictions count by default as Class I felonies if the other jurisdiction classifies them as a felony, or as Class 3 misdemeanors if the other jurisdiction classifies them as a misdemeanor. The State or the defendant may, however, attempt to depart from those default classifications through a preponderance-of-the-evidence … Read more
A probation violation must be willful. In this prior post I wrote about the burden-shifting process in which the State must prove to the court’s reasonable satisfaction that a violation has occurred, and then the defendant has an opportunity to show that the failure to comply was not willful. The issue often arises in the … Read more
I’ve heard folks say that there is criminal law . . . and then there is impaired driving law. What I think they mean is that while impaired driving is, of course, a crime, subject to the rules of criminal procedure and constitutional provisions that apply generally to the investigation, charging, trial, conviction and sentencing … Read more
For the past few years, the Section of Community Corrections of the Division of Adult Correction has been transitioning to what they call “evidence-based practices,” or EBP. The basic idea is to use series of assessment tools to identify which offenders are mostly likely to reoffend and most in need of programming, and then tailor their supervision accordingly. The process involves some terminology that is probably familiar by now to most probation officers, but may be less familiar to judges, lawyers, and defendants. Today’s post provides an overview of the process probation officers use to sort probationers into different supervision levels and an introduction into what those levels mean for probationers as a practical matter.
I mentioned in this prior post that the 2012 Justice Reinvestment clarifications act, S.L. 2012-188, made changes related to drug trafficking. Specifically, the law amended G.S. 15A-1368.1 to make clear that the post-release supervision law applies to drug trafficking sentences and added time onto the maximum sentences for those offenses accordingly. In response to the changes … Read more