WLOS reports that the Buncombe County Farm Bureau is offering a $5,000 reward for information related to four barn fires in the county that may have been intentionally set. Fires broke out at four barn structures in the western part of the county on Wednesday morning. One of the barns was 80 years old. Keep reading for more news.
This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals published on November 2, 2021. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.
In January 2020, North Carolina’s Second Judicial District (Beaufort, Hyde, Martin, Tyrrell, and Washington Counties) implemented two consensus bail reform initiatives. First, they implemented a structured decision-making tool for magistrates to use when making bail decisions. Among other things, the tool:
Second, stakeholders implemented new first appearances for individuals detained on misdemeanor charges to ensure timely judicial review of bail.
These reforms were developed by a stakeholder team including judges, prosecutors, public defenders, clerks, magistrates, and law enforcement leaders. One of the team’s goals was to reduce pretrial detentions of individuals who do not pose a pretrial risk but are detained due to inability to pay bail. The UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab supported stakeholders in the development and implementation of reforms and, with support from local stakeholders, conducted an empirical evaluation of their implemented reforms. We recently released a final report (here) on that evaluation. This post summarizes key findings.
This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Supreme Court released on October 29, 2021. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to present.
The North Carolina Judicial College was founded in 2005 to expand the education and training the School of Government has provided for judicial branch officials since the 1930s. Judicial College […]
In lieu of a full News Roundup this week, there’s just one thing we want to let you know about because of an upcoming application deadline – the NC Rural […]
Parts I – IV of Session Law 2021-123 make changes to the statutory structure that raised the age of juvenile jurisdiction to include most offenses committed at ages 16 and 17. The most significant changes relate to new prosecutorial discretion to decline to transfer cases in which the most serious charge is a Class D – Class G felony and the ability to extend the length of jurisdiction when a juvenile is committed to a Youth Development Center (YDC) for a Class A – Class E felony committed at age 16 or 17. The raise the age changes in S.L. 2021-123 are detailed below.
The North Carolina General Statutes require the senior resident superior court judge to, in consultation with the chief district court judge or judges, issue a local bail policy. G.S. 15A-535(a). But doing so is no easy matter given the many statutory rules and exceptions and areas for discretionary policy choices. Christopher Tyner and I have tried to facilitate that task, with a North Carolina Model Local Bail Policy. We first issued the Model Policy in the Spring and we just posted an updated version, incorporating the latest legislative changes to the state’s bail statutes. The Model Policy can be found here; it’s the first item under “Implement.” Read on for details.
As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, jury selection began this week in the joint trial of three men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia in February of last year. The report says that jury selection is proceeding slowly because many jurors have said that they believe the defendants are guilty after seeing cellphone video of the incident that was widely publicized after the killing. Keep reading for more on this story and other news.
This post summarizes criminal and related decisions published by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during September 2021. Decisions that may be interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous Fourth Circuit case summaries are available here.