November 11, 2022
The North Carolina Supreme Court held last week in State v. Diaz-Tomas, ___ N.C. ___, 2022-NCSC-115 (November 4, 2022), that neither a criminal defendant nor the court has the right […]
July 1, 2021
Nearly 15 years ago, the General Assembly created the misdemeanor offense of failing to appear for two years for an implied consent offense. See S.L. 2006-253 (enacting new G.S. 20-28(a3), […]
August 3, 2020
Among the Chief Justice’s early emergency directives and orders to address court operations in light of the COVID-19 outbreak were extensions for the time for paying monies owed in criminal […]
May 29, 2019
Failures to appear in court (FTAs) are expensive and inconvenient. There is wasted preparation and court time, along with cost and inconvenience for witnesses, jurors, defense lawyers, prosecutors and victims. […]
April 8, 2019
In a series of posts I’ve been discussing bail reform in North Carolina and various options to reduce pretrial detentions that do more harm than good. Some of the solutions […]
September 19, 2011
In 1985, the General Assembly reclassified certain minor traffic violations as a new type of non-criminal violation, termed an infraction. S.L. 1985-764. Though the legislation provided that infractions were to […]
April 26, 2011
[Editor’s note: Sorry that there was no post yesterday. I was travelling and didn’t have reliable internet access. We’re back on track today.] The misdemeanor offenses of driving after notification […]
December 16, 2009
I’ve had several questions recently about how to handle cases in which the defendant was charged with DWI, failed to appear, remained absent for several years, then reappeared. Often, the […]