A UNC School of Government Blog
As a general rule, and subject to local bond policy, the law gives judicial officials a great deal of discretion to determine the appropriate conditions of pretrial release. In some situations, however, the law limits that discretion. In my first post in this series I discussed situations where a defendant is not entitled to conditions. … Read more
The new year has begun with a bang: lots of criminal law news this week. For example, the General Assembly considered Wednesday night whether to override the Governor’s veto of the bill that would have effectively repealed the Racial Justice Act. The Senate voted 31-19 to override the veto, along party lines. But the House … Read more
NCAWARE is an acronym for the North CArolina WArrant REpository. It is the computer system that is used by judicial officials, usually magistrates, to create criminal process documents such as arrest warrants and criminal summonses. The documents are stored permanently in the system, and can be viewed by anyone with access to the system. The … Read more
With new legislation placing more inmates in the county jail—and with budgets continuing to be tight—I’ve been getting a lot of questions about jail fees. I’ve written about them in the past (see this post), but so much has changed since then that it’s time for another look. General Statute 7A-313 describes two types of … Read more
In my first post in this series, I addressed the issue of who is entitled to conditions of pretrial release. In this post, I’ll address who can set conditions and what pretrial release options are available. Who Sets Conditions Conditions of pretrial release are set by a judicial official G.S. 15A-532(a). Typically, conditions are set … Read more
This will be the last post of 2011. I’m off next week and many of our readers are, too. It’s been a fantastic year on the blog. We rocketed past a million total hits and saw a massive increase in email subscriptions. I have been particularly happy to see a nice uptick in the number … Read more
It’s the end of the year. The criminal justice system is slowing down a little bit for the holidays, but other activity is ramping up. For many parents, making a year-end gift to their children’s teachers is part of the holiday routine. Not so much in Alabama, though. This NPR story, headlined How Alabama Banned … Read more
Several earlier posts (here, here, here and here) and this article discuss the North Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling in State v. Ward, 364 N.C. 133 (2010), that the identification of a controlled substance based upon mere visual inspection is insufficiently reliable to serve as the basis for an expert’s opinion pursuant to Rule 702 of … Read more
Pretrial release didn’t used to be complicated. But over the last 10 years or so that’s changed, with the addition of exceptions and special procedures. In a series of posts, I’ll address some key issues about pretrial release. This post focuses on the basic question: Who gets conditions of pretrial release? As a general rule, … Read more
Happy belated Bill of Rights Day! The end of the year is supposed to be slow, but this week has been completely full of criminal justice news. Among the major stories are the following: 1. In Raleigh, Governor Perdue vetoed the de facto repeal of the Racial Justice Act. Republicans have the votes to override … Read more