Another Visit to DART Cherry

Published for NC Criminal Law on November 08, 2018.

Last week Shea led a North Carolina Judicial College class on DWI Procedures for Judges and Magistrates. One day of the program included a field trip to DART Cherry in Goldsboro, North Carolina’s substance abuse treatment program for male probationers. The group was kind enough to let me tag along. Today’s post gives a short trip report and addresses some frequently asked questions related to DART Cherry. I wrote about DART Cherry in this prior post after taking a different group of lawyers and court officials there in 2016. It is the only state-run substance abuse treatment program for men on probation. The counterpart program for women is in Black Mountain. There is no fee for either program. DART Cherry is a 90-day program for probationers (and, to a lesser extent, post-release supervisees and parolees). Nobody serving a fully active sentence in prison or jail goes to DART Cherry while they are incarcerated—regardless of what a judge might recommend or order. Substance abuse programming in prison is sometimes referred to as “DART,” but the proper name for prison-based programming nowadays is Alcohol and Chemical Dependency Programs. Most county jails lack any sort of similar programming. So, if a judge would like to send someone to DART Cherry, he or she should not order an active sentence or revoke the defendant’s probation. Instead, place or keep the person on probation and order DART Cherry as a residential program under G.S. 15A-1343(b1)(2). Some will say that even DART Cherry imposed as a condition [...]