Being married to me is hard. My husband makes an off-hand comment about how the city must need money since the police are pulling people over left and right for speeding on the road he travels to work. What does he get in response? A lecture on the state’s uniform court system and the fines and forfeitures clause of our state constitution. Thankfully, he is a patient man. He took it so well that I thought I’d share the finer points of that discussion with you.
court costs
Tracking Court Cost Waivers
Earlier this year National Public Radio ran a series on court costs entitled Guilty and Charged. The general point of the series was that “the costs of the criminal justice system in the United States are paid increasingly by the defendants and offenders”—a population that is mostly poor. Missed payments often lead to more fees, interest, probation violations, and eventually incarceration.
North Carolina is no exception to the national trend.
Civil Judgments for Court Costs
Recent changes to G.S. 7A-304 (discussed in my previous post) make it more likely that a judge will impose court costs on a defendant who receives an active sentence. Costs now apply by default in active punishment cases, and they may only be waived upon written findings of just cause. Not surprisingly, a frequently asked … Read more
Waiving Court Costs
Following up on Jeff’s post yesterday about court costs and traffic citations, today’s post is about a trial judge’s authority to waive court costs. Under G.S. 7A-304, certain court costs “shall be assessed” in every criminal case where a defendant is convicted or enters a plea of guilty or nolo contendere. Under the pre-2011 version … Read more
Court Costs and Traffic Citations
Court costs support many different programs and purposes. The principal statute concerning court costs in criminal cases is G.S. 7A-304. (Under G.S. 15A-1118, these costs also apply to infraction cases.) G.S. 7A-304 establishes various court costs for the support of “courtroom(s) and related judicial facilities,” “courthouse phone systems,” “retirement and insurance benefits [for] . . … Read more
The $600 Lab Fee
I’ve heard a few recurrent questions recently regarding the imposition upon a defendant’s conviction of a $600 fee for support of the State Bureau of Investigation or for law enforcement purposes of a local government unit that operates a crime laboratory. First, is such a fee discretionary? Second, does it apply if the SBI laboratory … Read more