Beginning with offenses committed on or after January 1, 2025, new laws are in effect regarding the standard and procedures for addressing juvenile capacity to proceed. The new statutes can be found in G.S. 7B-2401-2401.5. You can find blogs about the details of the new standard and procedures here and here. This major revision to the law of juvenile capacity to proceed required new court forms and a new process for credentialing juvenile forensic evaluators. This post details those new structures. Continue Reading
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New Law on Juvenile Capacity to Proceed
The current law that governs a juvenile’s capacity to proceed in a delinquency matter matches part of the criminal law that governs a defendant’s capacity to proceed. The Juvenile Code expressly incorporates G.S. 15A‑1001, ‑1002, and ‑1003—the criminal provisions that establish a capacity standard and establish procedure to raise and determine capacity to proceed. G.S. 7B-2401. The criminal provisions that address safeguarding the defendant to return for trial should the defendant subsequently become capable of proceeding and return of the defendant for trial upon gaining capacity are notably absent from the Juvenile Code.
Beginning with offenses committed on January 1, 2025, the Juvenile Code will contain new laws, different from the criminal law, that establish a juvenile capacity standard, establish procedures to raise and determine capacity, and create new procedures for remediation of incapacity. This blog summarizes the new juvenile capacity standard and outlines the procedure to raise and determine capacity under the new law. More information on criminal procedure related to capacity to proceed can be found at https://benchbook.sog.unc.edu/criminal/capacity-proceed. Continue Reading