North Carolina Criminal Law

At a recent conference, a judge confessed to me that he and his fellow judges drive the clerks crazy because they all pronounce judgment differently. They use different words to […]

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Many of you have received one of those letters: a notice from the N.C. Department of Public Safety, Division of Adult Correction (DAC), Section of Combined Records, seeking “clarification” of […]

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Today’s post is a video explaining the rules for extending probation in North Carolina. It covers the two different types of extensions, and answers the question of how many times a case […]

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A defendant is sentenced to 10–21 months for a Class H felony. How much time will he or she actually serve? What about a Class D felon sentenced to 59–83 […]

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A North Carolina defendant has a common law right to be personally present when a criminal sentence is pronounced. That right is separate from the constitutional right to be present […]

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In North Carolina we have a fair number of habitual and repeat offender punishment provisions—laws that increase a defendant’s punishment because of crimes he or she has committed in the […]

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Some inmates are serving long sentences for older crimes that would receive a much shorter sentence under today’s law. It is clear at this point that they cannot have today’s […]

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North Carolina’s first attempt at a presumptive sentencing law was the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA). The law was in effect for offenses committed from July 1, 1981 to September 30, […]

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Most people can get behind the idea that inmates should, if able, do some sort of work during their incarceration. By statute, “[i]t is declared to be the public policy […]

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Before Structured Sentencing we had Fair Sentencing. Under Fair Sentencing, there was no such thing as “prior record level,” but a prior conviction could qualify as an aggravating factor, exposing […]

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