Absconding Continues to Come into Focus

Almost ten years after the Justice Reinvestment Act established a new statutory definition of absconding from probation, we’re starting to get a better sense of what behavior does and does not rise to the level of absconding. By statute, it is a regular condition of probation that a defendant must not “abscond by willfully avoiding supervision or by willfully making the defendant’s whereabouts unknown to the supervising officer.” G.S. 15A-1343(b)(3a). That condition was added as part of the Justice Reinvestment Act in 2011, and it is one of only two conditions for which a person may be revoked upon a first violation (the other is committing a new criminal offense). Absconding is the most common violation for which probationers get revoked. In State v. Williams, 243 N.C. App. 198 (2015), the Court of Appeals made clear that an absconding violation had to be something more than “simply a re-alleging” of technical violations for failing to report to a probation officer or failing to remain within the jurisdiction. In State v. Johnson, 246 N.C. App. 139 (2016), we learned that missing one appointment is not absconding—particularly when the defendant told the officer he would miss the appointment and was wearing an electronic monitor that made his whereabouts the opposite of unknown. In State v. Krider, 371 N.C. 466 (2018), the Supreme Court said that information from an unidentified person at the last known residence was insufficient evidence to establish that the defendant’s was aware that his probation officer was looking for him. [...]