This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Supreme Court decided on May 1, 2020.
News Roundup
As the Charlotte Observer reports, yesterday UNC Charlotte marked the one-year anniversary of the campus shooting that claimed the lives of two students on the last day of spring classes. In a ceremony that was conducted virtually because of the coronavirus, yesterday morning campus police officers placed two wreaths in front of the Kennedy Building, the site of the tragedy, to honor the two students who were killed, Reed Parlier and Riley Howell. Later, at 5:10pm, the Niner Nation streamed a live event with remarks from the chancellor and other members of the UNCC community. Keep reading for more news.
New Sentencing App Available
Six years ago (almost to the day) the School released its first version of the Structured Sentencing smartphone app. A new web-based version is available today.
Ramos v. Louisiana and the Jim Crow Origins of Nonunanimous Juries
Ramos v. Louisiana, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court last Monday and summarized here, holds that the Sixth Amendment impartial jury guarantee gives defendants a right to a unanimous jury verdict in state trials. The case is making waves for reasons tangential to the dispute between the parties: in a dizzyingly split opinion, the justices argue more over the meaning of stare decisis (the court’s obligation to follow its prior holdings) than whether defendants in state courts may be convicted by a less-than-unanimous jury. This aspect of the opinion has been widely discussed (see analysis here, here, here, and here), and foreshadows the justices’ likely battle over an upcoming reproductive rights case. Since the divergent perspectives on stare decisis have been covered elsewhere, I will consider another issue that split the justices: the legal relevance of the nonunanimous jury law’s Jim Crow origins.
First, a pop quiz
Did North Carolina ever allow non unanimous jury verdicts in criminal trials? Read on for the answer.
Remote Delinquency Proceedings Not Otherwise Authorized in Statute
Last month I blogged about the one type of delinquency hearing for which remote proceedings are expressly authorized in statute—hearings on continued custody. This blog analyzes the legal and practical considerations for holding other types of delinquency proceedings through the use of audio and video technology. It will provide an overview of the authority to hold other delinquency proceedings remotely, discuss special considerations related to delinquency proceedings, and address what it all means for first appearances, probable cause hearings, transfer hearings, adjudication hearings, and dispositional hearings.
2019 North Carolina Jail Occupancy Rates
Local jails are an important part of the state’s criminal justice system. Jails house, among others, individuals held pretrial, serving sentences, and held for federal and other authorities. In this report and in the accompanying spreadsheet (here), we provide information about North Carolina jail occupancy rates. Among other things, we find that:
- 40.6% of counties[1] exceeded in-county jail capacity for at least one month in 2019; and
- 56.3% of counties exceeded 90% of in-county jail capacity for at least one month in 2019.
Our report relies on information reported to state authorities. Specifically, the North Carolina Administrative Code requires the sheriff or the administrator of a regional jail to submit a monthly report to the Jail and Detention Section of DHHS’ Division of Health Service Regulation.[2] Police chiefs likewise are required to report monthly on the occupancy of municipal lockups.[3] According to DHHS, those required to report do not include a count of inmates housed in other counties; rather they count only individuals physically present in the facility.[4] A jail that is housing individuals for another county would include those persons in its count.[5] We obtained a compilation of reported data from DHSS and it serves as the basis for this report.
News Roundup
The Charlotte Observer reported this week that a majority of the inmates at Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro and at least eight staff members at the facility have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. With more than 450 inmates testing positive, the Observer report says that the outbreak at Neuse is among the largest of any prison in the nation. Keep reading for more on this story and other news.
Case Summaries – Supreme Court of the United States (April 20, 2020) and N.C. Court of Appeals (April 21, 2020)
This post summarizes an opinion issued by the Supreme Court of the United States on April 20, 2020, and opinions issued by the Court of Appeals of North Carolina on April 21, 2020.
Results from Empirical Evaluation of NC Judicial District 30B Bail Project
After former Chief Justice Mark Martin’s North Carolina Commission on the Administration of Law and Justice issued its final report recommending that North Carolina embark on bail reform pilot projects, North Carolina Judicial District 30B launched the first such project. Judicial District 30B consists of two rural counties in Western North Carolina: Haywood and Jackson. Among other things, the district is not served by a public defender, has no pretrial services, and in one of the counties caseloads are such that District Court is not held daily. The collaborative pilot project was led by Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Bradley Letts and involved a broad range of stakeholders including the District Attorney, local defense lawyers, District Court judges, magistrates, clerks of court, police chiefs, representatives from the Sheriffs’ departments, and more.
Preserving Motions to Dismiss for Insufficient Evidence
Earlier this month, the North Carolina Supreme Court decided State v. Golder, ___ N.C. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___, 2020 WL 1650899 (April 3, 2020). Before that decision, there were somewhat tricky rules about how to preserve appellate review of all issues in a motion to dismiss for insufficiency of the evidence. No more. The Golder decision clarifies that all sufficiency issues are preserved with a properly timed motion to dismiss at trial. This decision overrules a line of cases holding otherwise and simplifies the process of preserving sufficiency issues at trial for defense counsel. Read on for the details.