Assess Court Costs Once for All Related Charges Adjudicated Together

When a defendant has multiple charges adjudicated together in the same hearing or trial, and those charges arose from the same underlying event or transaction, the court should assess costs only once. That’s the new rule according to State v. Rieger, a case recently decided by the court of appeals. In Rieger, the defendant was convicted by a jury of two crimes arising from the same underlying incident: possession of marijuana and possession of marijuana paraphernalia. The court entered a judgment for each conviction, assessing costs in both. Under G.S. 7A-304(a), costs shall (unless waived) be assessed “in every criminal case . . . wherein the defendant is convicted.” On appeal, the defendant argued that both judgments were part of the same “criminal case” within the meaning of that statute, and that costs should therefore be assessed only once. A unanimous panel of the court of appeals agreed with him. Finding no clear answer in the text of the statute and no dispositive legislative history, the court considered “the spirit of the act and what the act seeks to accomplish.” Slip op. at 9. On that front, the court noted that costs are not meant to be punitive, but as a practical matter they sure can be, “particularly for low-income defendants.” Id. Failure to pay them can, the court said, lead to “a cascade of crises that ultimately return even the most well-intentioned people back to the criminal justice system.” Id. The court also noted that costs were meant to reflect [...]