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New SOG Bulletin: “When and How Criminal-Defense Attorneys Can Obtain Access to Confidential Child Welfare and Juvenile Abuse, Neglect, and Dependency Records”

I am happy to announce the publication of my new bulletin, “When and How Criminal-Defense Attorneys Can Obtain Access to Confidential Child Welfare and Juvenile Abuse, Neglect, and Dependency Records.” I hope it is of help to anyone needing to determine criminal attorney access to these protected records.

Consider these common scenarios. A criminal attorney learns that a county department of social services (DSS) or equivalent agency has been involved with that attorney’s client and family. Or maybe the attorney believes that the DSS has investigated a report of suspected abuse, neglect, or dependency that involves a witness or alleged victim in the criminal case. How can the criminal attorney access existing child-welfare and juvenile abuse, neglect, and dependency records that may be relevant to the criminal case?

Alternatively, a respondent parent, guardian, custodian, or caretaker in a juvenile abuse, neglect, and dependency (A/N/D) action has been charged criminally. The criminal attorney asks the attorney representing the same individual in the A/N/D matter to share records and information relating to the A/N/D proceeding. What can the A/N/D attorney share with the criminal attorney?

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News Roundup

WLOS reports that the Buncombe County Farm Bureau is offering a $5,000 reward for information related to four barn fires in the county that may have been intentionally set.  Fires broke out at four barn structures in the western part of the county on Wednesday morning.  One of the barns was 80 years old.  Keep reading for more news.

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Annual Report from the North Carolina Judicial College

The North Carolina Judicial College was founded in 2005 to expand the education and training the School of Government has provided for judicial branch officials since the 1930s. Judicial College funding has enabled the School to provide more courses for a growing court system and to offer training in small group, interactive educational settings. Our latest … Read more

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News Roundup

In lieu of a full News Roundup this week, there’s just one thing we want to let you know about because of an upcoming application deadline – the NC Rural Jail Project. In this project, the UNC SOG Criminal Justice Innovation Lab and RTI International will work with one rural county to help local stakeholders … Read more

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Raise the Age Legislative Changes

Parts I – IV of Session Law 2021-123 make changes to the statutory structure that raised the age of juvenile jurisdiction to include most offenses committed at ages 16 and 17. The most significant changes relate to new prosecutorial discretion to decline to transfer cases in which the most serious charge is a Class D – Class G felony and the ability to extend the length of jurisdiction when a juvenile is committed to a Youth Development Center (YDC) for a Class A – Class E felony committed at age 16 or 17. The raise the age changes in S.L. 2021-123 are detailed below.

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News Roundup

As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, jury selection began this week in the joint trial of three men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia in February of last year.  The report says that jury selection is proceeding slowly because many jurors have said that they believe the defendants are guilty after seeing cellphone video of the incident that was widely publicized after the killing.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news.

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News Roundup

ABC 11 recently took a trip to observe law enforcement training at Robeson County Community College where officers from various local agencies used high tech simulation equipment to practice de-escalation techniques and experience the high stress situations, such as those involving an active shooter, where use of force decisions must be made.  The report notes that the North Carolina Justice Academy launched a new de-escalation training model earlier this year and that there is widespread interest in enhancing law enforcement training across the state.  Keep reading for more news.

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Court of Appeals Rules on Pretrial Self-Defense Immunity Hearings

Last month, the Court of Appeals decided State v. Austin, ___ N.C. App. ___, 2021-NCCOA-494 (Sept. 21, 2021), and a summary of the opinion is available here. Austin addressed several noteworthy self-defense issues, including the sufficiency of the state’s evidence to rebut the presumption of reasonable fear under the “castle doctrine” statutes added in 2011 and whether the trial court’s jury instructions on that issue were proper.

But first, the court had to decide whether the statutory language conferring “immunity from liability” meant that the defendant was entitled to have this issue resolved by the judge at a pretrial hearing. That’s a question I’ve been asked fairly often over the past few years, and my sense is that prior to Austin there were divergent practices on this point around the state.

This post takes a closer look at that portion of the court’s opinion, and explores what we now know and what we still don’t.

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