In the 2015 legislative session, the General Assembly made two significant changes to the pretrial release statutes: (1) it effectively repealed a “bond doubling” provision for defendants rearrested while on pretrial release, and (2) it expanded the scope of the 48-hour rule for domestic violence cases to include dating couples.
More About Those Weird DWI Motions Procedures
You represent a defendant charged with DWI. You move to suppress evidence in district court. The district court enters a preliminary determination in your favor. The State appeals. The superior court disagrees with the district court and remands the case with instructions to deny your motion. Your client pleads guilty. You appeal to superior court. You want the court of appeals to consider the merits of your motion. What should you do to preserve that right?
Is North Carolina the Only State in Which the Prosecutor Controls the Calendar?
I was on a panel about criminal case calendaring yesterday at the Courts Commission. While talking to people in preparation for the event, I kept hearing one thing: that North Carolina is the only state in which the prosecutor controls the calendar. After conducting some research, I don’t think that’s quite right.
Habitualized Sex Crimes
Suppose a defendant is convicted of a Class F–I felony that requires registration as a sex offender. He is also convicted as a habitual felon. When sentencing the defendant as a habitual felon, the court obviously will select a minimum sentence appropriate for an offense that is four classes higher than the underlying felony. But what maximum sentence should the court impose? Should it use the regular maximum sentence from G.S. 15A-1340.17(e), or the elevated sex offender maximum from subsection (f)?
News Roundup
A divided North Carolina Supreme Court decided State v. Packingham last Friday, upholding the statutory ban on registered sex offenders using social networking websites that allow minors to join. G.S. 14-202.5. The defendant argued that the statute violated his First Amendment rights, but the court ruled that the statute targets conduct, not speech, and that any incidental burden on speech is justifiable. A law professor’s skeptical analysis of the decision is here. Another professor’s suggestion that the case may merit review by the United States Supreme Court is here.
Is Paddling a Student a Crime?
On the first day of elementary school each year, our teacher displayed her paddle, which was wooden with a short, solid handle. The paddle portion had holes drilled through its core. Most school years, someone (always a boy, in my recollection), wound up being paddled. Times have changed for most students. But because a handful of schools in North Carolina still employ corporal punishment, questions continue to arise regarding when such punishment crosses the line between permissible school discipline and unlawful assault.
News Roundup
Superior Court Judge Arnold Jones, the Chair of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, was arrested this week and charged in federal court with bribery and related offenses. WRAL reports here that the judge allegedly attempted “to bribe an FBI officer [by paying him $100] to collect text messages between two phone numbers in what the judge said was a family matter.”
Three-Year Review of Probation
When a probationer has served three years of a probationary period greater than three years, the probation officer is required to bring the case before the court for a mandatory review. The review has one statutory purpose: to give the court an opportunity to terminate probation early.