North Carolina Criminal Law

In Part I of this post, I set out the rule from Bounds v. Smith that “the fundamental constitutional right of access to the courts requires prison authorities . . […]

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In 1977, in a case arising out of North Carolina, the Supreme Court of the United States held that “the fundamental constitutional right of access to the courts requires prison […]

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I’ve been asked a couple of questions related to forfeiture lately, which has led me to realize that I don’t know much about it. So I’ll offer a little information […]

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Under G.S. 15A-1335, “[w]hen a conviction or sentence imposed in superior court has been set aside on direct review or collateral attack, the court may not impose a new sentence […]

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I wrote about satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders ten times in 2009. The court of appeals’ recent decision in State v. Phillips gives me my first occasion to write […]

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Under G.S. 14-7.6, when a defendant is sentenced as a habitual felon, his sentence “shall run consecutively with and shall commence at the expiration of any sentence being served” by […]

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Can a defendant be ordered to pay restitution based on offenses that did not result in a conviction? Of course a defendant should not be ordered to pay restitution for […]

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Article 1, section 10 of the Constitution—the Compacts Clause—authorizes two or more states to enter into agreements or compacts with one another, provided they have the consent of Congress. Dozens […]

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A longstanding lament of the corrections community in North Carolina has been the lack of a residential substance abuse treatment center for female probationers and parolees. In other words, there […]

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In Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986), the Supreme Court held that “the Eighth Amendment prohibits a State from carrying out a sentence of death upon a prisoner who […]

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