Laws Taking Effect October 1

The North Carolina General Assembly has been quite busy this session. This year’s legislative updates span a range of topics within the world of criminal and motor vehicle law. Summaries of those enactments will be published on the School of Government website once the General Assembly adjourns for the session. For now, I’ll use this post to highlight the laws taking effect tomorrow, October 1, 2025. Pretrial release Section 2 of S.L. 2025-85 (H 318) creates a new pretrial release procedure that requires judicial officials to determine legal residency for defendants charged with certain offenses. The following categories of offenses trigger the inquiry: any felony; a Class A1 misdemeanor under Article 6A (unborn victims), Article 7B (rape and other sex offenses), or Article 8 (assaults) of G.S. Chapter 14; any violation of G.S. 50B-4.1 (violation of a domestic violence protective order); and any offense involving impaired driving as defined in G.S. 20-4.01. For defendants charged with these offenses, a judicial official must “attempt to determine if the defendant is a legal resident or citizen of the United States by an inquiry of the defendant, or by examination of any relevant documents, or both.” Note that the inquiry is whether the person is a legal resident of the United States, not only North Carolina. The law also modifies some of the provisions enacted by section 9 of S.L. 2024-55 (H 10). I wrote more about the new law in this earlier blog post. Firearms Section 23 of S.L. 2025-70 (S 429) enacts [...]