Recent blog posts - 32 of 69

Today’s post describes two unrelated but important developments in the area of family law. The first section of the post discusses legislative amendments to Chapter 50B regarding Domestic Violence Protection Orders that became effective December 1, 2019. The second section of the post discusses amendments to the Child Support Guidelines adopted by the Conference of Chief District Court Judges effective March 1, 2020 to bring North Carolina into conformity with federal child support regulations.

READ POST "Amendments to Chapter 50B and to the Child Support Guidelines (February 12, 2020)"

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)* is a complex federal law that applies to abuse, neglect, or dependency (A/N/D); termination of parental rights (TPR); and adoption proceedings. One of the purposes of ICWA is to provide special protections to federally recognized Indian tribes and the tribes’ children and families. See 25 U.S.C. 1901‒1902.

Subject matter jurisdiction between tribal courts and state courts is governed by ICWA when an “Indian child” is the subject of the A/N/D, TPR, or adoption proceeding. When any of the criteria of 25 U.S.C. 1911(a) are met, the tribal court has exclusive subject matter jurisdiction. When that criteria do not exist, ICWA allows for concurrent jurisdiction between state and tribal courts. See 25 U.S.C. 1911(b), (c). The N.C. Court of Appeals (COA) recently published two opinions addressing subject matter jurisdiction under ICWA. In one case, the COA held that the N.C. court had jurisdiction in an adoption proceeding that involved two Indian children. In the other case, the COA remanded for further proceedings in the trial court in part to ensure the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction in the A/N/D action when it was uncertain whether the child was an “Indian child.”

A takeaway from these cases is that the N.C. court is not automatically divested of subject matter jurisdiction when an Indian child is the subject of the proceeding. But, how does the N.C. court know if it has subject matter jurisdiction?

The capacity to transfer a juvenile matter to superior court as a result of the return of an indictment was added to the Juvenile Code as part of the law changes that raised the age of juvenile court jurisdiction. S.L. 2017-57 §16D.4.(e) as amended by S.L. 2019-186 §8.a. Never before had the indictment process been connected to delinquency matters in juvenile court. This new structure requires a finding in the juvenile matter after an indictment has been returned. It raises a range of questions about procedure and confidentiality. This post will review when indictment can be used to trigger the transfer process, highlight what is known and not known about the procedure that must accompany the new use of indictment in delinquency matters, and address the question of confidentiality of an indictment that is used to form the basis of a judicial finding in juvenile court.

During the 2019 legislative session, various changes were made to the laws impacting adoptions in North Carolina. Last week, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a Joint Resolution (Resolution 2020-1) adjourning the long session of the 2019 Regular Session and designating the start of the short session as April 28, 2020. This post summarizes the amendments impacting adoption proceedings that were made during the long session, all of which are currently in effect.

From School of Government faculty member John Rubin: I want to kick off 2020 by welcoming Tim Heinle to the School of Government. It is his first week on the […]

My colleague, Margaret Henderson, and I are excited to announce a new SOG resource – Human Trafficking of Minors and Young Adults: What Local Governments Need to Know. Youth are particularly vulnerable to traffickers. County and municipal staff in many departments have either spontaneous or deliberate interactions with youth that provide opportunities to lessen those vulnerabilities, identify indicators of trafficking, and intervene when appropriate. Download the bulletin on the School of Government’s website, here.

This 36-page bulletin is organized into three parts.

Over the last several months, I’ve been working with one of my colleagues to create a Judicial College course for magistrates on decision-making. Working on this has really brought home to me that making decisions is pretty much what judicial officials get paid to do! So far, it looks like the course will be close to equally divided between (1) how to make a legally sound decision, and (2) how to control factors that might get in the way of that. This blog post is about the latter.

North Carolina sits four days away from implementation of the most significant change to juvenile court jurisdiction since the inception of the juvenile delinquency system 100 years ago. Beginning on December 1, 2019, most offenses alleged to have been committed by 16- and 17-year-olds will begin under juvenile jurisdiction. G.S. 7B-1501(7)b, G.S. 7B-1604(b). This change will shift the procedures that law enforcement must follow when processing 16- and 17-year-olds for these now juvenile offenses from criminal procedures to juvenile procedures. The good news, as Jeff Ledford, Chief of Police in Shelby, N.C., put it—if an officer knows how to take a 13-year-old into custody today, that officer knows how to take a 16- or 17-year-old into custody on December 1^st.  This blog provides three key tips for law enforcement to follow and links to a short training video and job aid developed specifically for law enforcement training on raise the age.

As I noted in a prior blog post, the US Congress restored the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA) without expiration on June 23, 2018.   The PTFA has been […]

This post was amended October 3, 2023 to reflect a new statutory exemption for reporting.

An Act to Protect Children from Sexual Abuse and to Strengthen and Modernize Sexual Assault Laws, S.L. 2019-245 (S199) enacts and amends various laws related to crimes;* amends some civil and criminal statutes of limitations; requires mandatory training for school personnel addressing child sex abuse and trafficking; amends the definition of “caretaker” as it relates to child abuse, neglect, or dependency; and creates a new universal mandatory reporting law for child victims of certain crimes.