Criminal Law and Procedure

The 1998 session of the General Assembly was a relatively quiet one in the field of criminal law and procedure, or at least in what traditionally has been considered part of that field. Few changes were made in areas such as the elements of criminal offenses or pretrial and trial procedure. The General Assembly was more active in areas that are less traditional but that more and more are being linked to the administration of criminal justice. The most extensive changes were to the state’s juvenile justice laws, which govern juveniles alleged to be delinquent or undisciplined. Those changes are discussed in Chapter 13 (Juvenile Law). The General Assembly also passed the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, implementing the state constitutional amendment on victims’ rights passed by the North Carolina voters in 1996. The first part of this chapter discusses the victims’ rights legislation. The remainder describes other criminal legislation, primarily affecting controlled substance offenses but also addressing a few other criminal offenses and miscellaneous aspects of criminal procedure. Many of the changes with respect to criminal law and procedure appear in the Current Operations and Capital Improvement Appropriations Act of 1998, S.L. 1998-212 (S 1366), which will be referred to here simply as the 1998 Appropriations Act. Readers interested in criminal law and procedure also should consult Chapter 6 (Courts and Civil Procedure), Chapter 19 (Motor Vehicles), and Chapter 23 (Sentencing, Corrections, Prisons, and Jails). Chapter 23 and Chapter 6 discuss changes in the authority of trial courts to order restitution as part of a defendant’s sentence. Chapter 19 discusses changes in the state’s impaired-driving laws, including changes in the procedure for forfeiture of motor vehicles involved in impaired-driving offenses.