Another New Rule for CRV Jail Credit

A legislative session wouldn’t be complete without a new jail credit rule for confinement in response to violation (CRV). When a person is on probation for multiple offenses and CRV is ordered in more than one of them, the “period of confinement . . . shall run concurrently on all cases related to the violation.” G.S. 15A-1344(d2). In other words, you can’t stack CRV periods consecutively; they must run concurrently. The idea was to limit confinement for technical violations to a maximum of 90 days—primarily as a way to reduce the prison population, but also apparently consistent with research showing that shorter confinement in lieu of revocation leads to better criminal justice outcomes in the long run. To give an example, suppose a person is on probation for three felonies with three 6–17 month suspended sentences, set to run consecutively in the event of revocation. If he commits one probation violation other than a new crime or absconding, a 90-day CRV may be ordered in each case, but those 90-day periods must run concurrently. The defendant could not, for instance, be ordered to serve 270 days of back-to-back-to-back CRV confinement. That was all fine—for the most part. (I certainly get my share of questions about whether CRV may be run consecutively to other probationary confinement, such as a split sentence or contempt, as a way to lengthen imprisonment for technical violations). The real trouble arises when our thrice-dunked probationer later gets revoked, and his activated sentences are set to run consecutively. Because a [...]