Another Case on Probation Hearings After Expiration

As the courts expand operations in the coming months, they’ll likely be holding probation violation hearings on cases where the probation period has already expired. A case decided by the Court of Appeals yesterday offers some insight into the type of findings needed to give a court jurisdiction to act. Under G.S. 15A-1344(f), a court can extend, modify, or revoke probation after it has expired as long as: The State files a written violation report before the case expired; The court finds a violation; and The court finds for good cause shown and stated that the probation should be extended, modified or revoked. In State v. Morgan, 372 N.C. 609 (2019), discussed here, the Supreme Court of North Carolina held that the third requirement—the requirement for a finding of good cause—was no mere surplusage. Without a finding of good cause, the trial court does not have jurisdiction to act. What wasn’t clear after Morgan was how detailed that finding needed to be. State v. Sasek, decided yesterday, sheds a little light. In Sasek, the defendant had pending criminal charges and a pending probation violation. He was tried on the new charges first. After the jury convicted him of the substantive charges, he pled guilty to being a habitual felon in exchange for the State’s agreement that his activated suspended sentence on the probation case would run concurrently with the sentence for the new convictions. One of the issues on appeal was that all of this was done fourteen months after the [...]