S.L. 2021-182 (S 183) enacted significant changes to the laws that require certain persons convicted of driving while impaired to have ignition interlock installed on their vehicles. Those changes include: (1) eliminating the 45-day delay for a limited driving privilege to become effective, (2) requiring that ignition interlock be installed only on the vehicle or vehicles the person drives rather than all the vehicles the person owns, (3) requiring that ignition interlock vendors waive a portion of ignition interlock costs for qualified persons, (4) removing the time and purpose restrictions on a limited driving privilege if a person has ignition interlock, (5) changing the alcohol concentration restrictions for ignition interlock from 0.04 and 0.00 to a universal standard of 0.02; and (6) directing a legislative committee to study ignition interlock expansion and related issues.

The Detroit Free Press reports that a $100 million federal civil lawsuit has been filed against the Michigan school district where a high school student killed four of his peers and injured several others in a shooting last week.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news.

This post summarizes published criminal and juvenile delinquency decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on December 7, 2021. These summaries will be added to the School’s Criminal Case Compendium.

As in recent sessions, the General Assembly remained active in revising North Carolina’s expunction laws. The biggest changes came in S.L. 2021-118 (S 301), as amended by section 2.3 of S.L. 2021-167 (H 761). The legislation expanded the opportunity for a person to expunge older convictions of “nonviolent” felonies but with complex eligibility conditions. This post is a first stab at analyzing that legislation. At the end of the post are short summaries of other 2021 legislation revising North Carolina’s expunction laws.

Most of us, at one point or another, have dedicated a day of the week to running our personal errands. That day might consist of going to the grocery store, shopping at the mall, or grabbing coffee with a friend. Now imagine on the way home from any of those activities, you get this notification on your iPhone:

You don’t own an AirTag or probably don’t even know what it is, but it doesn’t take long for you to realize that you’re being tracked. Recently, this has happened to unsuspecting people in Virginia and Arkansas.

While there have not yet been any reported instances in North Carolina, our cyberstalking statute prohibits this type of nonconsensual tracking. This post explores the cyberstalking offense as proscribed by G.S. 14-196.3.

The United States Supreme Court held in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305 (2009), that sworn forensic reports prepared by laboratory analysts for purposes of prosecution are testimonial statements, rendering their authors – the analysts – witnesses for purposes of the Sixth Amendment. A defendant has the right to be confronted with such a witness at trial, unless the witness is unavailable and the defendant has had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the witness. The upshot is that the State generally may not introduce these kinds of forensic reports in a criminal trial without calling the analyst to testify in person.

Since 2014, G.S. 15A-1225.3 and G.S. 20-139.1 have permitted forensic and chemical analysts to testify remotely in a criminal or juvenile proceeding via a means that allows the trier of fact and the parties to observe the analyst’s demeanor in a similar manner as if the analyst were testifying in the location where the hearing or trial is being conducted. Both statutes, however, have permitted such remote testimony only in circumstances in which the defendant fails to object to the analyst testifying remotely, thereby waiving the right to face-to-face confrontation.

This legislative session, the General Assembly amended G.S. 15A-1225.3 and G.S. 20-139.1 to authorize remote testimony by analysts in district court criminal proceedings regardless of whether the defendant objects.

These amendments become effective January 1, 2022 for criminal proceedings beginning on or after that date.

The nation was again confronted with the recurring tragedy of a school shooting when a 15-year-old sophomore at a Michigan high school killed four of his peers and seriously injured seven others.  USA Today says that there have been at least 21 shootings in American schools since August.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news.

This legislative session, the General Assembly amended G.S. 15A-1215(a), effective October 1, 2021, to permit an alternate juror to replace a regular juror after deliberations have begun. S.L. 2021-94 (discussed in more detail here). The North Carolina Conference of Superior Court Judges Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions has created a new instruction for judges to utilize when substituting an alternate juror after deliberations have begun and has amended the existing closing pattern instruction to ensure that alternate jurors refrain from discussing the case with anyone until they are discharged from service. The revised interim instructions are available here.

Following years of discussion and drafts, a formal Rules of Conduct for Magistrates was promulgated by the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) effective October 1, 2021.

Statutory Authorization

In June, Session Law 2021-47 Section 13.(a) authorized the AOC to prescribe rules of conduct for all magistrates via a new G.S. 7A-171.3. It said that the rules of conduct shall include rules governing standards of professional conduct and timeliness, required duties and responsibilities, methods for ethical decision making, and any other topic deemed relevant by the AOC. 

History

Historically, magistrates have been subject to the North Carolina Code of Judicial Conduct as officers of the court in theory, though not everyone has agreed that the Code was directly applicable to magistrates. Confusing the issue further, the NC Judicial Standards Commission is not authorized to hear complaints about magistrates or clerks of court, among others. So, while the Judicial Standards Commission oversees ethical issues for North Carolina trial and appellate judges, no similar body has been in place for magistrates.

Interim Report: Judicial District 21 Bail Project

In January 2020, North Carolina’s Twenty-First Judicial District (Forsyth County) implemented a consensus bail reform initiative in the form of a structured decision-making tool for magistrates and judges when making bail decisions. Some key features of the tool include:

• creating a presumption for a condition other than a secured bond for Class 2 and 3 misdemeanors;
• providing screening factors to identify individuals charged with Class 1 and A1 misdemeanors and Class F-I felonies who can safety be released pretrial;
• affording no special presumption or screening for those charged with Class A-E felonies; and
• embedding within the decision-making process the statutory requirement that conditions other than a secured bond must be imposed absent a risk of non-appearance, injury to any person, or interference with the criminal proceeding.

The new decision-making tool was developed by a stakeholder team that included judges, prosecutors, public defenders, clerks, magistrates, law enforcement leaders, and others. One of the working group’s primary goals was to reduce pretrial detentions of individuals who do not pose a pretrial risk but are detained solely due to inability to pay bail. The UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab supported stakeholders in the development and implementation of the new tool and, with support from local stakeholders, is conducting an empirical evaluation of its impact. We recently released a report (here) from the first year of the evaluation. This post summarizes key findings.