Nonautomatic Sex Offender Registration
For the most part, if a defendant is convicted of a crime included in the list of reportable offenses, the defendant must register. But some crimes require registration only if the judge orders it....
View ArticleJail Credit for Functionally Consecutive Sentences
Suppose a defendant is being held on two charges, Charge A from County A and Charge B from County B. He was arrested for both at the same time and has been held on both for the same number of days. For...
View ArticleServing Time for an Unpaid Fine or Costs When Time Has Already Been Served
If a defendant has fully served a term of imprisonment, can he or she be further imprisoned for not paying a fine or costs? Under G.S. 15A-1362(c), when a defendant is ordered, other than as a...
View ArticleNew AOC Form for Relief from Monetary Obligations
The Administrative Office of the Courts has issued a new form, AOC-CR-415, through which a person can make a motion for relief from costs, fines, and other monetary obligations. The form also doubles...
View ArticleCase Summaries – N.C. Court of Appeals (Oct. 20, 2020)
This post summarizes opinions issued by the Court of Appeals of North Carolina on October 20, 2020. (1) The trial court did not make a record adequately addressing its consideration of the totality of...
View ArticleCase Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (Feb. 2, 2021)
This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on February 2, 2021. Gabrielle Supak and Jamie Markham prepared these summaries. As always, they will...
View ArticleCase Summaries – Supreme Court of North Carolina (April 16, 2021)
This post summarizes criminal decisions released by the Supreme Court of North Carolina on April 16, 2021. In the absence of substantial evidence of incompetency, the trial court was not required to...
View ArticleCase Summary: Jones v. Mississippi
In Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), the Supreme Court held that a person who commits a homicide when he or she is under 18 may not be mandatorily sentenced to life without parole; the sentencing...
View Article2020 Cumulative Supplement to North Carolina Crimes Available
The latest cumulative supplement to North Carolina Crimes is now available. It incorporates legislation enacted and cases decided through December 31, 2020. You can buy the book here. Purchase of the...
View ArticleCase Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (August 3, 2021)
This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on August 3, 2021. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a...
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Revisions to North Carolina’s Satellite-Based Monitoring Law
After years of litigation concerning the constitutionality of satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders, the General Assembly has amended the law pretty dramatically. Today’s post describes...
View ArticleCase Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (Nov. 2, 2021)
This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals published on November 2, 2021. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a...
View ArticleCase Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (Feb. 1, 2022)
This post summarizes criminal decisions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals published on February 1, 2022. As always, these summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and...
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Substance Use Disorder Treatment During a Pandemic: A Conversation with TROSA
Today’s post is a conversation between Jamie Markham (JM) and Kristen Rosselli (KR), Chief Operating Officer at TROSA. We’ve been getting a lot of questions about how TROSA and other substance use...
View ArticleCase Summaries – Supreme Court of North Carolina (March 11, 2022)
This post summarizes criminal decisions released by the Supreme Court of North Carolina on March 11, 2022. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in imposing a special condition of probation....
View ArticleCase Summaries – Court of Appeals of North Carolina (April 19, 2022)
This post summarizes published criminal decisions from the Court of Appeals of North Carolina released on April 19, 2022. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and...
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Habitualized Sex Crimes, Take Two
About seven years ago, I wrote this post about habitualized sex crimes. The issue I explored there was how to sentence a person convicted of a Class F through I sex crime when he or she has also...
View ArticleEvaluating Substantial Similarity of Prior Out-of-State Convictions after...
State v. Graham, 2021-NCSC-125, 379 N.C. 75 (2021), sheds new light on what it means for an out-of-state prior conviction to be “substantially similar” to a North Carolina crime for prior record level...
View Article2021 Sentencing Commission Statistical Report Available
Today’s post takes a look at the latest Structured Sentencing Statistical Report from the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission. This year’s report, available in full here, is based...
View ArticleNo Appeal for District Court Probationers Who Waive Their Right to a Hearing
Under G.S. 15A-1347(b), if a defendant waives a probation revocation hearing in district court, he or she may not appeal the revocation or imposition of a split sentence to superior court for a de novo...
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