North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Children in North Carolina can be tried as respondents in delinquency proceedings for their actions beginning at age 6. The inclusion of young children in delinquency jurisdiction, some of whom may be young enough to remain staunch believers in Santa and to eagerly await a visit from the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny, raises significant legal questions in light of their developmental maturity. Those questions include:

• whether the infancy defense should play a role in delinquency proceedings?
• whether the capacity standard used in delinquency proceedings should explicitly account for developmental immaturity?
• at what point do children develop the skills necessary to function as a competent respondent?

A new Juvenile Law Bulletin, Including Young Children in Delinquency Jurisdiction: Issues of Infancy and Capacity, is now available and discusses these issues in-depth. This blog provides some highlights of the bulletin.

Twice over the last few weeks, I have been asked to teach public officials about North Carolina’s courts. In my day-to-day work, I spend a lot of time thinking about what our court officials do in particular cases and the law that governs those choices. I less often consider the structure in which they carry out that work. In preparing to talk about that broader topic, I gathered a few thoughts and, more importantly, links to important resources that I thought readers might find of interest.

A multi-state search for a woman wanted in connection with a January murder at a Hickory furniture plant is ongoing this week and a U.S. Marshal said that there is a good chance that the woman and her husband, who also is wanted on suspicion of being an accessory after the fact, are still in the greater Hickory area.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news.

This post summarizes published criminal and related decisions decided in January 2021 by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals which may be of interest to state practitioners (along with one from December that I missed before).

The Fayetteville Observer reports that Fayetteville law enforcement is asking the public for information about a disturbing series of burglaries in the city over the past few months.  On several occasions, home security cameras have captured images of a masked person wearing kneepads burglarizing people’s homes while they slept inside.  A police spokesman said that the suspect appears to be intentionally targeting the homes of elderly people.  Keep reading for more news.

As USA Today reports, fallen United States Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was killed during a violent insurrection by extremist supporters of former President Donald Trump in early January, laid in honor in the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday before his interment at Arlington National Cemetery.  Sicknick is the third Capitol Police officer to receive that honor, the first two being Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson who were shot by an armed intruder in 1998.  Keep reading for more news.

This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on February 2, 2021. Gabrielle Supak and Jamie Markham prepared these summaries. As always, they will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.

We have issued a series of reports on North Carolina state and county-level jail occupancy rates, including one in October 2020 focusing on changes in total county and statewide jail occupants during the COVID-19 pandemic (our earlier reports are here, here and here). This report provides updated jail population numbers through November 2020. Please refer to our prior reports for information on data sources and calculations.

WNCT reports that the Greenville Police Department and the Pitt County Sheriff’s Department, in partnerships with Integrated Family Services, will soon launch Co-Responder Mental Health Response Programs.  Under the GPD program, which starts next week, IFS professionals will work directly out of police headquarters and respond alongside law enforcement officers to situations involving possible mental health crises.  The GPD program, which will be the first of its kind in eastern North Carolina, will begin next week, and the program at the Sheriff’s Department will begin later this spring.  Keep reading for more news. 

The Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act (JJRA), which raised the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to include youth who commit offenses at ages 16 and 17, went into effect on December 1, 2019. What impacts have been realized in the juvenile justice system as a result? The Juvenile Jurisdiction Advisory Committee (JJAC), created by the JJRA, submitted its required interim report to the General Assembly on January 15, 2021. The report provides many details about the first year of implementation as well as JJAC recommendations for legislative amendments and ongoing budgetary needs. This blog provides a summary of some of the trends during the first year of raise the age implementation as detailed in the report.