by Michelle Sparrow | Oct 7, 2014 | Criminal Defense, Criminal Law Blog
In a unanimous vote last month, the Raleigh City Council approved the police department’s use of facial recognition software. When the program launches its yearlong test period in November, Raleigh will join 26 or more local, state and federal law enforcement... by Michelle Sparrow | Sep 24, 2014 | Criminal Defense, Criminal Law Blog
This is the last post in our series about parole in North Carolina. In our last post, we discussed the process for crimes committed before the state adopted the structured sentencing program. Structured sentencing dramatically altered the release process. The... by Michelle Sparrow | Sep 22, 2014 | Criminal Defense
In our last two posts we talked about parole eligibility under the Fair Sentencing Act and the Structured Sentencing Act. As we have said, though, parole under structured sentencing is much different. It is not the old early release process: Offenders must serve the... by Michelle Sparrow | Sep 17, 2014 | Criminal Defense, Criminal Law Blog
We are talking about parole in North Carolina. We said in our last post that the process here is different from what we see in the movies. A friend asked what we were talking about. First, there were the movies in the ’30s and ’40s that had some James... by Michelle Sparrow | Sep 15, 2014 | Criminal Defense, Criminal Law Blog
There is a difference between how North Carolina’s parole process works and how it works elsewhere, especially in the movies. One important difference is that the North Carolina Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission does not meet with the offender to... by Michelle Sparrow | Sep 13, 2014 | Criminal Defense, Criminal Law Blog
Back in 2011, criminal justice officials here in North Carolina were faced with something of a financial and logistical nightmare concerning the prison population. That’s because the budget for adult corrections had ballooned to over $1.3 billion while the...