A UNC School of Government Blog
With three words—PER CURIAM. AFFIRMED.—the Supreme Court of North Carolina last week added a new wrinkle to two already perplexing areas of the law: sex offender registration and PJCs. In Walters v. Cooper, the high court affirmed the court of appeals’ conclusion that a conviction for which a person receives a prayer for judgment continued … Read more
With another legislative session in the books, it’s time once again for a revised sex offender flow chart. The revised chart is available here. The changes are summarized below. New reportable offenses. Session Law 2013-33 added human trafficking under G.S. 14-43.11 to the list of sexually violent offenses that require sex offender registration, but only … Read more
North Carolina’s ban on accessing commercial social networking sites by sex offenders is unconstitutional on its face, the court of appeals held this morning in State v. Packingham. Under G.S. 14-202.5, it is (was?) a Class I felony for any registered sex offender to access a commercial social networking web site where the offender knows … Read more
The court of appeals recently decided another case on petitions to terminate sex offender registration. Once again, the decision turned on what I have called the “Wetterling finding”—the rule in G.S. 14-208.12A(a1)(2) that a judge may not remove a person from the registry if doing so would not comply with “the federal Jacob Wetterling Act, … Read more
I’m headed to High Point today to teach a session for magistrates on crimes related to sex offender registration. I’m glad I looked at the slip opinions from the court of appeals before I left. A case decided today answers a somewhat frequently asked question about sex offender registration: Does a PJC for a sex … Read more
It’s time for another update to my sex offender flow chart. The latest version is available here. As in the prior versions, everything to do with sex offender registration is on the front and everything to do with satellite-based monitoring (SBM) is on the back. Here is a summary of the changes in the latest … Read more
As expected, the number of people on post-release supervision (PRS) is on the rise. After Justice Reinvestment, all felons with offense dates on or after December 1, 2011 who serve active time receive PRS. The legislature projected that the addition of PRS for Class F-I felons would increase the number of post-release supervisees from 2,000 … Read more
Last week I wrote about the North Carolina law that makes it a crime for any registered sex offender to use a commercial social network, G.S. 14-202.5. In that post I noted that similar laws in other states have been overturned or limited on First Amendment grounds, and that litigation on the constitutionality of our … Read more
In last week’s news roundup, Shea mentioned Doe v. Prosecutor, Marion County, Indiana, a recent case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit struck Indiana’s law prohibiting sex offenders from using social networking websites on First Amendment grounds. North Carolina has a similar crime, a Class I felony under G.S. … Read more
The North Carolina Supreme Court granted Wednesday the state’s petition for a writ of supersedeas to stay enforcement of the court of appeals’ judgment in State v. McKenzie, ___ N.C. App. ___ (January 15, 2012). McKenzie held, over a dissent, that the one-year disqualification of a defendant’s commercial driver’s license (CDL) based on the issuance … Read more