DAC’s Auditing Authority

Many of you have received one of those letters: a notice from the N.C. Department of Public Safety, Division of Adult Correction (DAC), Section of Combined Records, seeking “clarification” of a judgment. Combined Records audits judgments as they come in, identifying issues and sentencing errors and bringing them to the attention of the court system. Today’s post considers the legal basis for this review, and some of the issues it raises.

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Where to Serve a Sentence

Under existing law, the basic rules for where a sentence should be served are as follows: Misdemeanors, 90 days or less. If a sentence imposed for a misdemeanor is 90 days or less, it generally must be served in the jail. G.S. 15A-1352(a). There are exceptions for when the jail is overcrowded or the inmate … Read more

How Do You Measure a Month?

In State v. Bowden, 193 N.C. App. 597 (2008), disc. rev. improvidently allowed, 363 N.C. 621 (2009), and Jones v. Keller, 364 N.C. 249 (2010), our appellate courts considered the sentence length and sentence credits applicable to a group of inmates with offense dates from the 1970s. They committed their crimes at a time when … Read more