A UNC School of Government Blog
Questions related to the Justice Reinvestment Act keep flooding in. Lots of them have been addressed elsewhere on this blog (see our Justice Reinvestment Resource Page for a collection of everything that’s been written so far), but I thought it might be helpful to collect some of the frequently asked questions into a single post. … Read more
Some probationers are subject to a curfew—a time each day (usually in the evening or at night) when they are restricted to their residence. Recent changes to the law have generated some questions about curfews. In particular, there appears to be some confusion about whether a curfew can or must be monitored electronically. This post … Read more
Former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was sentenced yesterday to 30 to 60 years in prison on 45 counts of sexually abusing boys. The New York Times has the story here. The sentencing judge could have imposed a much longer cumulative sentence, but said: “I’m not going to sentence you to centuries. It makes … Read more
The Justice Reinvestment Act created a new early release program called Advanced Supervised Release (ASR). In short, the law allows certain prison inmates to get out of prison early if they complete “risk reduction incentives” while they are incarcerated. I wrote about the basics of the law here, and covered a glitch in the law’s … Read more
Y’all may be tired of reading about sentencing in impaired driving cases, particularly if you’ve read this entire bulletin. But I’m hoping the reader-market will bear a few more sentencing-related posts since I’ve not tired of writing about the subject. Recently, in a session I taught about sentencing under G.S. 20-179, a lively discussion broke … Read more
Under G.S. 15A-1340.14(e), a defendant’s prior out-of-state convictions count by default as Class I felonies if the other jurisdiction classifies them as a felony, or as Class 3 misdemeanors if the other jurisdiction classifies them as a misdemeanor. The State or the defendant may, however, attempt to depart from those default classifications through a preponderance-of-the-evidence … Read more
I’ve heard folks say that there is criminal law . . . and then there is impaired driving law. What I think they mean is that while impaired driving is, of course, a crime, subject to the rules of criminal procedure and constitutional provisions that apply generally to the investigation, charging, trial, conviction and sentencing … Read more
For the past few years, the Section of Community Corrections of the Division of Adult Correction has been transitioning to what they call “evidence-based practices,” or EBP. The basic idea is to use series of assessment tools to identify which offenders are mostly likely to reoffend and most in need of programming, and then tailor their supervision accordingly. The process involves some terminology that is probably familiar by now to most probation officers, but may be less familiar to judges, lawyers, and defendants. Today’s post provides an overview of the process probation officers use to sort probationers into different supervision levels and an introduction into what those levels mean for probationers as a practical matter.
I mentioned in this prior post that the 2012 Justice Reinvestment clarifications act, S.L. 2012-188, made changes related to drug trafficking. Specifically, the law amended G.S. 15A-1368.1 to make clear that the post-release supervision law applies to drug trafficking sentences and added time onto the maximum sentences for those offenses accordingly. In response to the changes … Read more
It’s been over six months since the last update of my sex offender flow chart (the previous version was current as of January 12, 2012). A revised version is now available here. As in the prior version, everything to do with registration is on the front and everything to do with satellite-based monitoring (SBM) is … Read more