Latest posts tagged with misdemeanors on North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

This session, the General Assembly made some changes to the statute governing the fingerprinting of criminal defendants. Inside and outside the School of Government, people are divided about whether the statute now requires officers to arrest, rather than cite, individuals for misdemeanor marijuana possession offenses.

Have you ever been convicted of or pleaded nolo contendere (no contest) to any violation of the law other than minor traffic tickets?

Millions of people, many of whom were convicted of petty crimes, must answer this question (a favorite of employers) in the affirmative. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reported in a recent article on the processing of misdemeanor crimes that nearly 1 in 3 Americans has a criminal record.  While those records are based on arrests, not convictions, a substantial percentage of people charged with misdemeanor offenses are convicted.  North Carolina’s district courts, for example, disposed of more than 450,000 misdemeanor (non-traffic) criminal cases in the 2013-2014 fiscal year.  A third of those cases resulted in convictions. 

When I talk about the “commit no criminal offense” probation condition, it’s almost always about one particular issue. May a pending charge (or even uncharged conduct) be considered as a […]

I thought I’d take a few minutes and jot down some questions and answers about the new fine-only punishment scheme for Class 3 misdemeanors for many defendants (enacted as part […]

District court has original jurisdiction to try misdemeanors, so a misdemeanor usually arrives in superior court after a defendant is convicted of a misdemeanor in district court and appeals for […]

The North Carolina Court of Appeals decided its first breath-testing source code case yesterday.  The court in State v. Marino affirmed the trial court’s determination that the defendant had no […]

The legislature has agreed on a budget, and it contains some provisions that will impact misdemeanor sentencing and the appointment of counsel — potentially in tens of thousands of cases […]

I recently received an email that began “I have been reading in the news that Sheriff Mike Cain of Yadkin County pled guilty to eight misdemeanors. I am curious how […]

I haven’t done any sort of official tally, but I think the most common sentencing error in North Carolina might be sentencing the defendant to an improper period of probation. […]

A while ago, Alyson Grine and I wrote a post about consecutive sentences for misdemeanors. In it, we discussed the rule that when a court elects to impose consecutive sentences […]