Collaboration at Its Finest

When I think of effective collaboration, I think of Kiesha Crawford, manager of the Juvenile CIP at the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts. She knows how to do it well. I love her “let’s figure out how we can make this happen” attitude.  While adhering to agency guidelines (which, with a federally funded program, are numerous), she is willing to step out of the box and strategize with partners to advance the mission of the program. Along with others at SOG, I have worked closely with Kiesha and seen her tenacity in action. CIP and SOG have been collaborating for several years to provide relevant training and resources for judges and lawyers working in the area of abuse, neglect, and dependency law.

*This post was previously published on the School’s NC Criminal Law Blog on March 29th and we thought it would be of interest to our readers.

A week ago, I sat in the gallery of the United States Supreme Court with twenty North Carolina district court judges listening to Chief Justice John Roberts announce the court’s opinion in Endrow v. Douglas County School District. The unanimous opinion, in which the court reversed the Tenth Circuit’s holding that a child’s Individual Education Plan (IEP) satisfies federal law as long as it is calculated to confer an educational benefit that is “merely more than de minimis” quickly became the topic of questioning later that morning in the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee and current Tenth Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch. Listening to the Chief Justice explain the court’s reasoning was fascinating, and it was thrilling to have a bird’s eye view as the news traveled through the city and the nation. This experience was just one part of the North Carolina Judicial College’s inaugural Supreme Court Seminar for district court judges, which gave some of our state’s most experienced jurists an opportunity to consider the role of the nation’s highest court and the rule of law in our democracy, and to reflect upon their own judicial role.

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I often get asked what I do here at the School of Government.  My work focuses on the areas of law where clerks of superior court exercise judicial authority.  This response often elicits confusion – especially for people who work outside the NC court system.  The next question is inevitably – clerks are judges?  Well, the short answer is yes.   In addition to carrying out the more traditional roles of a courthouse clerk, such as record-keeper, administrator, comptroller, and supervisor, the clerks of superior court of North Carolina also serve as judicial officials.  This is unique to North Carolina.  I am not aware of any other state where clerks carry out such a significant, if any, judicial role.  So just who is the clerk of superior court and what are the areas of the clerk’s judicial authority?  I thought I’d use this post to go over some of the highlights. Continue Reading

When must a civil order include specific findings of fact and conclusions of law?  Some types of orders must always include at least some findings; some orders need only include them if a party asks for them; and for other orders, findings of fact are inappropriate whether requested or not.  Rule 52 of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure gives us the core rules, but exceptions and clarifications abound.  And, of course, some types of orders are governed by separate, more specific statutes.  Here are the fundamentals: Continue Reading

In December, the North Carolina Supreme Court filed its long-awaited opinion in State v. Saldierna, __ N.C. __, 794 S.E.2d  474 (December 21, 2016), a juvenile interrogation case heard by the court on February 16, 2016. This decision marks the first time the court has addressed the rights of a juvenile during a custodial interrogation since J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 564 U.S. 261 (2011), the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case which made age a relevant factor in the Miranda custody test (and reversed the state supreme court on this issue). Saldierna did not directly involve whether the juvenile was in police custody, since he was clearly under arrest. The issue, instead, was whether a juvenile must make a clear and unambiguous request in order to exercise the juvenile’s statutory right to have a parent present during a custodial interrogation. The Supreme Court said yes, reversing the Court of Appeals on this question. This post discusses whether the ruling can be reconciled with J.D.B. and Juvenile Code statutes governing custodial interrogations. Continue Reading