Latest posts in category Sentencing on North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

As part of the Justice Reinvestment project, analysts from the Council of State Governments (CSG) looked at how the habitual felon law is used in North Carolina. In general, the […]

As I mentioned in a prior post, the Justice Reinvestment Act (S.L. 2011-192) creates a new set of “community and intermediate probation conditions” that can be ordered in any Structured […]

When analysts from the Council of State Governments studied North Carolina’s sentencing laws and correctional system, one of their key findings was that revoked probationers account for a lot of […]

Under Structured Sentencing, there are two types of non-active sentences: community punishment and intermediate punishment. Intermediate punishment is supervised probation plus at least one of six specific conditions of probation […]

Under existing law, the basic rules for where a sentence should be served are as follows: Misdemeanors, 90 days or less. If a sentence imposed for a misdemeanor is 90 […]

The Justice Reinvestment Act (S.L. 2011-192) creates a new program called Advanced Supervised Release (ASR).  Through it, certain inmates will be eligible for release from prison before serving their minimum […]

Every cell on the felony sentencing grid is divided into three ranges of permissible minimum sentences—mitigated, presumptive, and aggravated. Most defendants (69 percent) are sentenced in the presumptive range, about […]

In addition to enacting the aggravated level one punishment for impaired driving discussed here, the 2011 General Assembly amended the requirements for imposing a Level One impaired driving sentence, effective […]

In North Carolina a probationer has a statutory right to counsel at a probation violation hearing. G.S. 15A-1345(e); G.S. 7A-451(a)(4). The probationer can also waive the right to assistance of […]

Jeff mentioned in this prior post that S.L. 2011-12 created three new drug trafficking crimes—trafficking in MDPV, mephedrone, and synthetic cannabinoids. I have incorporated those new crimes (effective for offenses […]