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February 9, 2009
In addition to sentencing in the mitigated range of the Structured Sentencing grid, there are two ways defendants can receive more lenient punishment in North Carolina: extraordinary mitigation and substantial […]
READ POST "Going off the Grid (February 9, 2009)"February 4, 2009
A number of people have asked me whether the United States Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Oregon v. Ice (07-901) has any impact on North Carolina sentencing law. The short […]
READ POST "Consecutive Sentences, Not Put on Ice (February 4, 2009)"February 3, 2009
A federal judge in Utah recently invalidated the part of Utah’s sex offender registry that requires each registrant to provide his “[i]nternet identifiers and . . . addresses . . . [and] the name . . . of all websites on which the sex offender is registered.” Doe v. Shurtleff, 2008 WL 4427594 (D. Ut. Sept. 15, 2008) (quoting Utah Code Ann. § 77-27-21.5(12)(i) & (j)). This raises some questions about the constitutionality of North Carolina’s new requirement that sex offenders provide “[a]ny online identifier that the person uses or intends to use.” G.S. 14-208.7(b)(7) (eff. May 1, 2009). . .
READ POST "Sex Offenders, Online Identifiers, and the First Amendment (February 3, 2009)"January 30, 2009
If you’ve been reading the paper, you know the Division of Community Corrections (Probation) has been under a microscope lately. Since the killings of UNC undergraduate Eve Carson and Duke […]
READ POST "For Whom the (ahem) Period of Probation Tolls (January 30, 2009)"January 28, 2009
Like about half the states, North Carolina monitors certain sex offenders by satellite. The General Assembly first enacted our satellite-based monitoring (SBM) program in 2006, requiring lifetime monitoring of recidivists, […]
READ POST "State v. Wooten and Satellite Monitoring of Sex Offenders (January 28, 2009)"