Category: probation

A longstanding lament of the corrections community in North Carolina has been the lack of a residential substance abuse treatment center for female probationers and parolees. In other words, there […]

Under G.S. 15A-1341(a1), certain defendants may, with court approval, be placed on probation pursuant to a deferred prosecution agreement. To be eligible for this type of deferred prosecution the defendant […]

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. […]

The principal probation reform bill (S.L. 2009-372 [S 920], summarized here) went into effect on December 1. Since then, I’ve received a number of questions about it, many of them […]

A recent court of appeals case, Blaylock v. N.C. Department of Correction-Division of Community Corrections, has spurred to write about something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while: […]

Under G.S. 15A-1343(c1), defendants placed on supervised probation must pay a monthly supervision fee of $30, unless exempted by the court. That exemption may only be granted for good cause […]

Suppose a defendant is convicted of a crime and the judge wants to (or, in a “C” or “C/I” cell in the sentencing grid, has to) suspend the sentence. Can […]

The First Amendment says, in part, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .” There are two […]

How long can a defendant be on probation for a single conviction? A.      Five years. B.      Eight years. C.      It depends. The best answer is C. A judge can sentence […]

Back in July the court of appeals decided State v. Hubbard, a probation revocation case that I mentioned in passing but never really discussed in depth. In Hubbard the defendant’s […]