February 12, 2025
For most citizens in North Carolina magistrates are the “first face” of the judicial system. They serve the public with professionalism, continually staying updated on the ever-evolving civil and criminal […]
February 19, 2024
If I had to answer the question in the title of this post in the briefest possible way, I would say: not usually. But there’s a lot of uncertainty and […]
October 3, 2023
The School of Government has published a new resource on initial appearances and pretrial release. Although any judicial official is authorized to preside at an initial appearance, in most cases […]
April 4, 2023
Pretrial release is generally set by magistrates at a defendant’s initial appearance. As a special approach to setting conditions of pretrial release, the “48-hour rule,” as it is known in […]
March 21, 2022
The North Carolina General Assembly revisited the authority of magistrates to conduct first appearances in Session Law 2022-6 (H243). The General Assembly ratified the law on 3/11/2022, and the Governor […]
December 1, 2021
Following years of discussion and drafts, a formal Rules of Conduct for Magistrates was promulgated by the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) effective October 1, 2021. Statutory […]
November 29, 2021
In this earlier blog post, I discussed changes made to North Carolina’s first appearance process, to be effective for criminal processes served on or after December 1, 2021. Additional amendments […]
September 8, 2021
On September 2, 2021, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed Session Law 2021-138 (S300) into law. The law makes wide ranging changes to the state’s criminal law and procedure, including […]
February 23, 2021
Twice over the last few weeks, I have been asked to teach public officials about North Carolina’s courts. In my day-to-day work, I spend a lot of time thinking about […]
December 16, 2019
One of the projects that I wanted to finish before I go was updating my old paper on the 48-hour rule of G.S. 15A-534.1. I just completed the update. The […]