House Bill 620, chaptered as S.L. 2025-54, enacted several changes affecting judicial authority and administration that may be of interest to practitioners generally. This post will review the legislation’s provisions affecting removal proceedings, the jurisdiction of specially assigned superior court judges, substitution of one trial judge for another, age limits for service as a trial judge, protocols for recovery courts, the disclosure of courtroom audio recordings, training and educational materials for jurors, and the appointment of magistrates.
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Tag: legislation
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Emergency Directives Renewed and Legislation Proposed to Permanently Authorize Remote Proceedings
Chief Justice Paul Newby issued an order on Friday, effective today, extending emergency directives currently in place for an additional thirty days to in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow marks a full year of altered court operations, as the first set of COVID-19 emergency directives became effective Monday, March 16, 2020.
The preamble. Chief Justice Newby stated that his ongoing evaluation of the pandemic might result in the expiration or modification of emergency directives, the issuance of new directives, or both. His current plan is to extend the emergency directives that are currently in place until the public health threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided. The Chief Justice reiterated his commitment to the state constitutional requirement that courts be open and that justice be administered without favor, denial, or delay.
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Social Services Working Group
[This post is co-authored with my colleague, Margaret Henderson]. It was originally posted on the Coates’ Canons: NC Local Government Law blog on March 29, 2018 but is relevant to readers of On the Civil Side as well.
In 2017, the North Carolina General Assembly established the Social Services Regional Supervision and Collaboration Working Group (SSWG) and directed it to develop recommendations related to the social services system (see legislative summary here). The legislation directed the UNC School of Government to convene the group, facilitate the meetings, and provide staff support to the project.
The SSWG’s work is divided into two stages. The group just released the final report for Stage One and is scheduled to present its recommendations to the legislature on April 10, 2018. Stage Two will get underway in May. All of the meeting materials, minutes, and recordings are available online.
There have been quite a few different conversations about social services system reform over the last year or so. As a result, there has been some confusion about the role of the SSWG. This blog post is intended to shed some light on the group’s charge and connect some dots between the work of the SSWG and other elements of system reform that are underway. Continue Reading
