North Carolina has a lot of habitual offender laws: habitual felon, violent habitual felon, armed habitual felon, habitual breaking and entering, habitual impaired driving, and habitual misdemeanor assault. A question that comes up is the extent to which these laws may permissibly interact with one another. Today’s post considers a few of the combinations I get asked about from time to time. Habitual breaking and entering + habitual felon. When a defendant gets charged and convicted as a habitual breaking and entering status offender, certain defined “breaking and entering” offenses (most of them Class H felonies, like breaking or entering buildings) get sentenced as Class E felonies. G.S. 14-7.31. May they be further enhanced from Class E to Class C under the regular habitual felon law, G.S. 14-7.6? (If the habitual felon law alone were applied to a Class H felony, the defendant would be sentenced as a Class D felon, because the regular habitual felon law is a four-class enhancement.) The habitual breaking and entering law says that a conviction as a habitual breaking and entering status offender “shall not constitute commission of a felony for the purpose of either Article 2A [Habitual Felons] or Article 2B [Violent Habitual Felons] of Chapter 14 of the General Statutes.” G.S. 14-7.31. The exact meaning of that provision is unclear, but I think it probably means that an offense enhanced under the habitual breaking and entering law should not be combined with the listed habitual offender laws. On the other hand, it could simply mean that [...]
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