North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Five years ago, the UNC School of Government published a unique manual, Raising Issues of Race in North Carolina Criminal Cases, as part of our Defender Manual Series. Supported by a grant from the Z Smith Reynolds Foundation, the manual examines how issues of race and bias can improperly influence criminal processes and outcomes, and it suggests strategies for lawyers to consider when addressing these issues. I coauthored the manual with former Defender Educator Alyson A. Grine, Professor John Rubin edited it, and a stellar volunteer advisory board, including James Williams, Tye Hunter, Rich Rosen, Mary Pollard, and Breana Smith, provided guidance during the creation of the manual.

This post provides summaries of the published criminal opinions issued by the North Carolina Supreme Court on September 27, 2019, and the North Carolina Court of Appeals on October 1, 2019.

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced this week that it will temporarily suspend operations at three prisons to alleviate high staff vacancy rates and enhance safety and security in the state prison system.  The announcement says that the statewide average correctional officer vacancy rate in August was 21% and that “[t]his level of staffing impacts operations . . . [and] negatively impact[s] the delivery of offender programs.”  Operations will be suspended at Hoke Correctional Institution, Tyrrell Prison Work Farm, and Odom Correctional Institution.  Employees at those prisons will be redeployed to nearby facilities.  The News Roundup previously has noted that understaffing has been a problem at certain North Carolina prisons in recent years and may have been a factor in a deadly escape attempt at Pasquotank Correctional Institution in 2017.  Keep reading for more news.

The federal government wants judges to know more about masking. What is it, and what do judges need to know?

Believe it or not, there is new juvenile delinquency law to wrap your head around other than the Juvenile Jurisdiction Reinvestment Act, which will raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction as of December 1, 2019. The 2019 legislative session resulted in several new laws related to juvenile delinquency cases that

• change the capacity to access teen court,
• establish new rules regarding photographing of some juveniles at the time of a show-up,
• create parental access to counsel in the context of Department of Social Services (DSS) placements as delinquency and undisciplined dispositions,
• establish new information sharing capacity between attorneys representing juveniles in child welfare and juvenile justice matters, and
• ease requirements for victims of human trafficking to access a juvenile expunction.

There is also an entirely new Article added to Chapter 7B of the General Statutes devoted to the rights of victims of delinquent acts. I will provide an overview of the delinquency-related provisions of the newly enacted legislation below. You can also access a bulleted summary of the 2019 enacted delinquency legislation on the juvenile law microsite. Several of these new statutes touch on other areas of law, such as child welfare and criminal procedure. Those provisions are outside the scope of this blog post and the bulleted summary.

The former UNC Charlotte student who attacked a classroom on the school’s campus earlier this year, killing two people and wounding four others, pleaded guilty to murder in Mecklenburg Superior Court yesterday.  The Charlotte Observer reports that as part of a plea agreement Trystan Andrew Terrell received two consecutive life sentences for killing Reed Parlier and Riley Howell; he also was sentenced on other charges not detailed in the report.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news.

This post provides summaries of the criminal cases (and one juvenile case) decided by the court of appeals on September 17, 2019.

Editor’s Note: This post was written by Professor Jessica Smith and graduate research assistant Ross Hatton.

Charged with identifying best practices and offering recommendations on how policing practices can promote effective crime reduction while building public trust, the Presidential Task Force on 21st Century Policing recommended that law enforcement agencies develop and adopt policies and strategies that reinforce the importance of community engagement in managing public safety. Specifically, it recommended that agencies adopt preferences for “least harm” resolutions, including the use of citation in lieu of arrest for low-level offenses. Increased use of citations offers other potential benefits, including increased law enforcement efficiency. A report by the International Association of Chiefs of Police found that citations offer a time savings of just over an hour per incident. Additionally, increased use of citations can help reduce unnecessary pretrial detentions of low-risk defendants and associated costs, unfairness, and negative public safety outcomes. An arrest triggers an initial appearance and imposition of conditions of pretrial release. Because secured bonds are the most common condition imposed in North Carolina, see Jessica Smith, How Big a Role Does Money Play in North Carolina’s Bail System (July 2019), the decision to make an arrest versus issue a citation often results in imposition of a secured bond and associated wealth-based detentions. For these and other reasons, justice system stakeholders are interested in citation in lieu of arrest policies, particularly for low-level crimes. One common question that stakeholders have been asking is: What do we know about how often officers use citations or make arrests in North Carolina? Read on for answers.

As the Charlotte Observer reports, former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake Jr. died on Thursday after a period of deteriorating health.  The Observer report notes that Lake’s intense interest in preventing or rectifying wrongful convictions led to the establishment of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission and made the state a national model for conviction review.  Lake served on the court for 12 years and was Chief Justice from 2001 to 2006.  He was 85 years old.  Keep reading for more news.

Suppose I told you that we could categorize defendants into six categories for risk of failure to appear (FTA) in court as required, with 1 being the lowest risk category and 6 being the highest. What is your guess as to the percentage of defendants who appear in court as required at risk level 1? At risk level 6? When I ask this question of North Carolina stakeholders, most guess that the percentage of defendants who appear in court at risk level 1 is about 50% and that the percentage who appear at risk level 6 is about 20%. They are wrong. Risk assessment validation done in North Carolina shows that 87.4% of risk level 1 defendants appear in court as required and that 61.2% of risk level 6 defendants do so. In fact, that validation shows that at all risk levels, a majority of defendants appear in court as required.