A UNC School of Government Blog
There’s a tremendous debate going on over child pornography sentencing in the federal courts. In a number of high-profile cases, judges have imposed sentences well below what the federal sentencing guidelines recommend. An Assistant Federal Public Defender published an influential paper arguing that the guidelines for such cases have been increased over time for reasons … Read more
What does it mean for a probationer to be terminated “unsatisfactorily” or “unsuccessfully”? From what I understand it’s a notation that the Division of Community Corrections (DCC) uses to indicate that a probationer’s term of probation ended without revocation, but under other-than-ideal circumstances. A common example arises when a probationer owes restitution as a condition … Read more
I’m in Asheville for the next few days, but I wanted to write briefly about an important case decided by the Court of Appeals last week. In State v. Bare, the court held that satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders is not punishment, and therefore does not implicate the Ex Post Facto Clause. The defendant … Read more
Last week the News and Observer ran an article about a legislative proposal to send more inmates to county jails instead of DOC facilities. A separate part of the plan proposed to reduce or eliminate reimbursement payments the state sends to the counties for certain inmates held in the jails. Both proposals appear to have … Read more
My wife reads celebrity gossip magazines, and one she brought home recently featured a couple who (a) apparently like to hit the nightspots (not necessarily with one another) and (b) have eight children. I assume that they don’t bring the kids with them when they go out on the town, and I don’t have any … Read more
Under G.S. 15A-1344(d), a “sentence activated upon revocation of probation commences on the day probation is revoked and runs concurrently with any other period of probation, parole, or imprisonment to which the defendant is subject during that period unless the revoking judge specifies that it is to run consecutively with the other period.” In State … Read more
by School of Government faculty members Jamie Markham and Alyson Grine Suppose Ronald is convicted of six counts of communicating threats, a Class 1 misdemeanor. Ronald has three prior convictions, making him prior conviction level II. The facts are bad and the sentencing judge wants to max Ronald out with the longest sentence allowable. What … Read more
Last week the court of appeals decided State v. Swann, concluding (among other things) that a prosecutor’s statement alone is insufficient to support a restitution award. A lot of recent cases have reached the same conclusion – State v. Replogle, 181 N.C. App. 579 (2007), State v. Calvino, 179 N.C. App. 219 (2006), and State … Read more
Editor’s note: Today’s post discusses a recent case about the unique-to-North-Carolina phenomenon of Prayer for Judgment Continued, or PJC. For a terrific earlier post about PJCs — it’s the single most popular post in the history of this blog — see Jamie Markham’s discussion, here. Like Jamie, I get a lot of questions about PJCs. … Read more
The other day I posted my thoughts about the “Jacob Wetterling” provision in G.S. 14-208.12A. While that provision raises what I think are the most difficult questions related to petitions to terminate sex offender registration, they are by no means the only questions. Here are some others (along with my best attempt to answer them, … Read more