North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

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 […]

In 2010, the Uniform Law Commission (also known as the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws) adopted the Uniform Collateral Consequence of Conviction Act to assist states in […]