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Session Law 2019-186, enacted on August 1, 2019, put the finishing touches on the new law that will raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction in North Carolina beginning on December 1, 2019. The modifications include clarification on which offense will remain outside of juvenile court jurisdiction, an expanded timeline for probable cause hearings in some instances, and a new option to remand some cases that have been transferred to superior court back to district court for juvenile processing. If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed or confused by raise the age, fear not. A raise the age workshop is coming to an area near you this fall. Stick with me to the end of this blog and you will find links to get to the registration page.

A legitimation is a special proceeding that is heard in the superior court (by the clerk, unless a transfer to superior court is required by G.S. 1-301.2(b)). G.S. 49-10; 12.1(a). […]

A light went out on the halls of justice over the weekend. And we are mourning.

READ POST "Goodbye, Judge Jarrell. You will be missed. (August 8, 2019)"

The North Carolina Juvenile Code (G.S. Chapter 7B) establishes the substantive law for abuse, neglect, dependency (A/N/D) and termination of parental rights (TPR) actions and also sets forth specific procedures. Although A/N/D and TPR cases are civil proceedings, many of the juvenile procedures differ from the general rules that apply to civil actions. One of the procedural differences applies to the district court’s jurisdiction in the underlying action when an appeal is pending.

Have you ever been deeply enmeshed in a project, thought it was done, and when you returned with fresh eyes realized that you missed something important? That has happened for me when, for example, I painted the walls of my son’s bedroom only to walk in the next day with fresh eyes and realize that I should have painted the trim as well. And then it happened again as I was working on a chapter in the forthcoming Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act Implementation Guide and realized that there is an amendment contained in the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act (JJRA), that will take effect on December 1, 2019, that changes one piece of the recently released Juvenile Law Bulletin, Delinquency and DSS Custody without Abuse, Neglect, or Dependency: How Does that Work?. The change limits the court’s authority to order DSS custody as a component of a delinquency disposition, allowing this disposition only for juveniles under the age of 18. This limiting language creates a clear age boundary for an initial order of disposition to DSS custody in a delinquency case. However, questions remain regarding the capacity for a juvenile to remain in DSS custody pursuant to a delinquency dispositional order after turning 18.

The Court of Appeals has issued two very recent opinions that remind us that parties may not be sanctioned without proper notice.  The party must have notice not only of the fact that sanctions are on the table but also of the specific basis for those sanctions.

In both cases, the defendant was given a severe sanction that effectively decided the issue of liability in the plaintiffs’ favor.  In neither case did the Court of Appeals suggest that the sanctions themselves were out of proportion to the conduct. The sanctions were reversed because due process demands a degree of notice not provided in either situation.

The website for the Universal Life Church has a banner on the homepage stating “Get Ordained Online, Officiate a Wedding”. That banner is located beside a link titled “Get Ordained Instantly” by supplying your name and an email address. Another link on the homepage takes the reader to a page specifically addressing “NC Wedding Laws” that clearly states that North Carolina law recognizes “ULC ordination”. Unfortunate for the people hoping to perform wedding ceremonies in NC and for the couples who use these persons to officiate their weddings, North Carolina law actually strongly indicates that marriages performed by persons with no credential of ordination other than a certificate from the Universal Life Church are invalid.

READ POST "North Carolina Case Law Indicates Marriages Solemnized in North Carolina by Persons “Instantly Ordained” by the Universal Life Church Are Not Valid (July 10, 2019)"

On June 14, approximately 30 people – including yours truly – participated in a Statewide Roundtable on Summary Ejectment jointly sponsored by AOC and the Bolch Judicial Institute. Participants included […]

My colleague, Sara DePasquale, and I were excited to release a new Juvenile Law Bulletin two weeks ago—Delinquency and DSS Custody without Abuse, Neglect, or Dependency: How Does that Work? We were also exhausted. While the laws that allow for courts to order juveniles into DSS custody in a delinquency proceeding are short, their implications are broad and complex. Sara’s blog announcing the bulletin, Extra! Extra! Read All About It! New Juvenile Law Bulletin – Delinquency and DSS Custody without Abuse, Neglect, or Dependency: How Does that Work?, provides some suggestions about reading the bulletin in bite-sized chunks. Now that readers have had a chance to do that, let’s focus on a few of the key points for delinquency practitioners.

• the proceeding remains a delinquency proceeding although the juvenile is in the custody of DSS;
• the only attorney who will represent a juvenile placed in DSS custody through a delinquency proceeding is the juvenile’s counsel in the delinquency matter;
• termination of probation does not automatically terminate DSS custody; and
• implementation of the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act (a.k.a. “raise the age”) could result in a new challenge for DSS placements.

Elected officials, law enforcement officers, tax collectors, zoning inspectors and other public officials sometimes face lawsuits over decisions they have made or actions they have taken. To prevent the fear of lawsuits from unduly influencing the judgment of public officials, the law extends personal liability protection to them in the form of public official immunity (“POI”).

POI will usually shield public officials from claims of negligent conduct, so long as they acted within the scope of their duties and without malice or corruption. The state’s case law is split, though, over whether POI can ever protect public officials from intentional tort claims such as assault, battery, and trespass. One line of cases answers that question in the negative. In the other line, public officials have successfully invoked POI to defeat intentional tort claims.

The North Carolina Court of Appeals recently issued a decision that comes down firmly on one side of the divide, keeping the split alive. After setting out POI’s basic features, this blog post briefly reviews that case and then examines the split in more detail, concluding that POI probably should be understood to bar some intentional tort claims. The post refers in several places to a 2016 Local Government Law Bulletin published by the School of Government and found online here.