October 28, 2014
Earlier this year National Public Radio ran a series on court costs entitled Guilty and Charged. The general point of the series was that “the costs of the criminal justice system in the United States are paid increasingly by the defendants and offenders”—a population that is mostly poor. Missed payments often lead to more fees, interest, probation violations, and eventually incarceration.
North Carolina is no exception to the national trend.
August 25, 2014
This fall, North Carolina voters will decide whether to amend the state constitution. The proposed amendment would allow, for the first time, bench trials for felonies in superior court. Neither […]
April 28, 2014
A probationer is entitled to a hearing on an alleged probation violation, unless the hearing is waived. G.S. 15A-1345(e). What does it mean to waive a probation violation hearing? As […]
January 15, 2014
May community service fees be waived? I suspect some of you are thinking “I hope so, because they just were,” or something along those lines. It turns out to be […]
November 1, 2012
Following up on Jeff’s post yesterday about court costs and traffic citations, today’s post is about a trial judge’s authority to waive court costs. Under G.S. 7A-304, certain court costs […]
June 2, 2010
Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court decided Berghuis v. Thompkins, an important Miranda case. (There are other issues in the case, too, but this post will focus on the Miranda […]
October 12, 2009
When a defendant pleads guilty, he waives a variety of rights, including the right to a trial, the right to confront the witnesses against him, and so on. The waiver […]
March 16, 2009
The Sixth Circuit, sitting en banc, recently decided a very interesting Miranda case. Garner v. Mitchell, available here, is a capital case. The defendant stole a woman’s purse, took a […]