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This post summarizes criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals published on October 19, 2021. Summaries will also be posted to Smith’s Case Compendium, here.
Last November, I blogged about recommendations from the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association for legislation that would enable hiring authorities, certifying commissions, and state prosecutors to learn of misconduct by officers, including untruthfulness, that would impair an officer’s credibility as a witness in a criminal prosecution and which must be disclosed to the defense. This type of information often is referred to as Giglio material, adopting the name of the first U.S. Supreme court case to apply a disclosure requirement to evidence relevant to impeaching a government witness, Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972).
This session, the General Assembly enacted legislation implementing some of the Association’s recommendations. Among the changes enacted by S.L. 2021-137 (S 536) and S.L. 2021-138 (S 300) are requirements that the certifying commission for an officer be notified when the officer is informed that he or she may not be called to testify at trial based on bias, interest, or lack of credibility. If the officer transfers to a new agency, the Criminal Justice Standards Division (in the case of State, municipal, company, and campus officers) or the Justice Officers’ Standards Division (in the case of deputy sheriffs, detention officers, and telecommunicators) must notify the head of the new agency and the elected district attorney in the prosecutorial district where the agency is located that the person has been previously notified that the person may not be called to testify at trial.
ABC 11 recently took a trip to observe law enforcement training at Robeson County Community College where officers from various local agencies used high tech simulation equipment to practice de-escalation techniques and experience the high stress situations, such as those involving an active shooter, where use of force decisions must be made. The report notes that the North Carolina Justice Academy launched a new de-escalation training model earlier this year and that there is widespread interest in enhancing law enforcement training across the state. Keep reading for more news.
Last month, the Court of Appeals decided State v. Austin, ___ N.C. App. ___, 2021-NCCOA-494 (Sept. 21, 2021), and a summary of the opinion is available here. Austin addressed several noteworthy self-defense issues, including the sufficiency of the state’s evidence to rebut the presumption of reasonable fear under the “castle doctrine” statutes added in 2011 and whether the trial court’s jury instructions on that issue were proper.
But first, the court had to decide whether the statutory language conferring “immunity from liability” meant that the defendant was entitled to have this issue resolved by the judge at a pretrial hearing. That’s a question I’ve been asked fairly often over the past few years, and my sense is that prior to Austin there were divergent practices on this point around the state.
This post takes a closer look at that portion of the court’s opinion, and explores what we now know and what we still don’t.
I recently posted, on the UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab website, a model implementation plan designed to help stakeholders comply with S.L. 2021-138. That law requires first appearances for all in-custody defendants within 72 hours after the defendant is taken into custody or at the first regular session of district court in the county, whichever occurs first. The new law becomes effective December 1, 2021 and applies to criminal processes served on or after that date.
After years of litigation concerning the constitutionality of satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders, the General Assembly has amended the law pretty dramatically. Today’s post describes those changes.
The Winston-Salem Journal reports that seven alumni of the UNC School of the Arts have filed a lawsuit in Forsyth Superior Court alleging that they were victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by faculty members in the 1980s and that school administrators did not intervene after the students reported the abuse. The plaintiffs are asking that the suit proceed as a class-action and say that several hundred former students could join. Keep reading for more news.
This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on October 5, 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.
Session Law 2021-123 includes several significant changes to the law that governs juvenile delinquency cases. This post will describe one of those changes—an increase in the minimum age for delinquency and undisciplined cases. As I write this post, that age is set at 6 years old. G.S. 7B-1501(7)a., -1501(27)a. Beginning with offenses committed on or after December 1, 2021, the minimum age for most acts of delinquency and for all undisciplined behaviors will be 10 years old. S.L. 2021-123 § 5.(b). This change comes with limited exceptions that provide for delinquency jurisdiction for some offenses committed at ages 8 and 9, a new procedure for juvenile justice to work with children between the ages of 6 and 10 through a juvenile consultation process, and new law related to the role of parents in juvenile consultation matters. This post walks through each of these components.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that four North Carolina prisons and a drug addiction treatment facility are being renamed because of historical connections to racism or slavery. NC DPS has a press release about the name changes here. The new names take effect on Monday. Keep reading for more on this story and other news.