Two years ago, I wrote about training prosecutors, forensic experts, and investigative police in Mexico. I’ve been back a couple of times since, including last week. Each time I learn something that makes me reflect on the workings of our own justice system. On my most recent trip, I learned more about the role of the victim in Mexico, and it got me thinking about the role of the victim in our criminal courts.
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News Roundup
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.
Crimes Covered under the New Victims’ Rights Law
Which crimes are covered under the new victims’ rights amendment and its implementing statute?
Commercial Motor Vehicles and Masking
The federal government wants judges to know more about masking. What is it, and what do judges need to know?
New Delinquency Laws – It’s Not Just Raise the Age
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.
What Americans Think about Bail
In 2018, a national survey asked Americans what they thought of our pretrial justice systems. Their responses? Strong support for expanded pretrial release. The survey was done by a bipartisan team of pollsters on behalf of Pew Charitable Trusts. See The Pew Charitable Trusts, Americans Favor Expanded Pretrial Release, Limited Use of Jail (2018). Here are my top six take-aways from the survey, along with related survey data, explanatory text and graphs, which come directly from the Pew report (all attribution to Pew).
News Roundup
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.
Use of Summons v. Arrest in North Carolina Misdemeanor Cases: A County-Level Analysis
Under state law, pretrial conditions must be set after a defendant is arrested for a crime, and this typically occurs at the initial appearance before a magistrate. G.S. 15A-511. Although state statutes express a preference for non-financial conditions (written promise to appear, custody release, and unsecured bond), G.S. 15A-534(b), secured bonds are the most commonly imposed pretrial condition in North Carolina. See Jessica Smith, How Big a Role Does Money Play in North Carolina’s Bail System (July 2019). Much has been written about the problems of using money to detain pretrial, including the unfairness of incarcerating people not because they are risky but because they are poor. Thus, in discussions about procedural reform, there is interest in making sure that law enforcement and court officials only execute or order arrests in cases where arrest is in fact required. If, in low-level cases for example, the officer opts for a citation instead of a warrantless arrest or the magistrate opts for a summons instead of an arrest warrant, the defendant simply is directed to appear in court to answer the charges. Since the defendant is not taken into custody, there is no initial appearance or setting of conditions, which again, skew towards secured bonds and create the potential for wealth-based detentions and other negative consequences. This explains why stakeholders are looking at citation and summons in lieu of arrest policies, either as stand-alone reforms or as part of broader bail reform efforts. As stakeholders explore these matters, they are asking questions about the prevalence of citation and summons use in their communities. In a paper here, we present data regarding citation usage in North Carolina. In this paper, we focus on usage of the criminal summons.
Case Summaries – N.C. Court of Appeals (9/17/2019)
This post provides summaries of the criminal cases (and one juvenile case) decided by the court of appeals on September 17, 2019.
Citation Versus Arrest by North Carolina Law Enforcement Officers: A County-Level Analysis
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.