Recent blog posts - 17 of 69

The current news seems to be full of reports of threats against schools. A search of the WRAL website for stories on school threats reveals at least five discrete stories on threats against North Carolina schools in May alone. How can schools and law enforcement be prepared to respond to, and perhaps even prevent, threats against student safety? The National Threat Assessment Center of the United States Secret Service (NTAC) has been researching that topic for over 20 years. The results are consistent. Schools that have an effective threat assessment structure in place, casting a wide net to effectively identify youth along a continuum of need and offering a range of responses, are best positioned to address threats and prevent school violence.

In this earlier post, I wrote about whether the 10-year statute of limitations for initiating an action on a judgment bars the entry of a QDRO if the request for […]

***This post was written by my colleague Phil Dixon. You can contact Phil at dixon@sog.unc.edu I started wondering about that question after reading last month’s decision by the Fourth Circuit […]

Determination of the correct disposition level available in a delinquency case requires a four-step process.

1. Identify the offense for which disposition is being entered (hereinafter referred to as the “disposition offense”).
2. Identify the offense classification for the disposition offense.
3. Calculate the juvenile’s delinquency history level.
4. Use the disposition chart to identify the corresponding level or levels for the case.

Suppose that a defendant is charged with possessing fentanyl with the intent to sell it. The state’s evidence includes a Facebook direct message, purportedly from the defendant to an informant, […]

Back in 2015, my former colleague Ann Anderson, wrote about legislation amending provisions in Rule 26(b)(4) dealing with expert witnesses in this post https://civil.sog.unc.edu/north-carolinas-expert-witness-discovery-rule-changes-and-clarifications/. S.L. 2015-153, in an effort “to […]

The short answer is no. There is no specific legal requirement to enter a disposition in a delinquency matter in a certain period of time. At the same time, the law does provide some context on moving efficiently to disposition, including the ability, in certain circumstances, to appeal an adjudication before a disposition has been entered. This blog explains that context.

**UPDATED 11/10/2023** The rule changes discussed in this post were finalized and adopted on September 28, 2023 and are effective November 27, 2023. As my colleague Sara DePasquale noted in her post summarizing 2023 child welfare legislative updates, 88 Federal Register 66700 (September 28, 2023) “amends the definition of ‘foster family home’ at 45 C.F.R. 1355.20(a) for the purposes of Title IV-E eligibility to allow for states to establish a set of licensing requirements and approval standards for relative foster family homes that are different from the standards that are used to license and approve non-relative foster family homes. A relative foster home licensed with the lower standards must receive the same payment as a licensed non-relative foster home (amended 45 C.F.R. 1356.21(m)(1)). This provision will only apply if North Carolina DHHS chooses to participate.”

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The federal Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is proposing regulatory changes that could have a significant impact on the placement of children removed from their parents due to suspected abuse, neglect, or dependency. This post discusses the proposed changes and the reasons supporting them and highlights the importance of relatives and nonrelative kin in juvenile abuse, neglect, dependency (A/N/D) proceedings.

(Note that while the proposal refers generally to Title IV-E agencies, this post refers specifically to the Department of Social Services (DSS), the petitioner in North Carolina A/N/D matters. Additionally, this post cites to the ACF’s proposal but omits internal citations within the proposal. See the proposal if you are interested in the research and other sources cited to by the ACF.)

Rent abatement is a remedy available to tenants when landlords fail to provide them with a fit and habitable property. Some things to consider when the court is faced with […]

What law applies when a juvenile is suspected of impaired driving? If the juvenile is 16- or 17-years-old, the criminal law applies in the same way that it applies to […]