New Restrictions on Citizen-Initiated Criminal Process

A colleague stopped into my office the other day to ask “did the General Assembly get rid of citizen-initiated warrants?” No, but it did make some significant changes to the procedure. Background. As discussed in this prior post, North Carolina law allows judicial officials to issue criminal process -- such as a criminal summons or a warrant for arrest -- based on testimony from people who are not law enforcement officers. Our state isn’t completely unique in that regard, but we do seem to give citizens more power to start up the machinery of the criminal justice system than most states do. Allowing citizens to initiate criminal charges has good aspects, such as increasing access to the courts and reducing the burden on law enforcement, and bad aspects, such as the potential for abuse of the criminal process. Legislative change. This session, the General Assembly passed S.L. 2017-176, one section of which amends G.S. 15A-304(b) -- the arrest warrant statute -- by adding a new subdivision (b)(2) as follows: [A]n official shall only find probable cause based solely on information provided by a person who is not a sworn law enforcement officer if the information is provided by written affidavit. If the finding of probable cause . . . is based solely upon the written affidavit of a person who is not a sworn law enforcement officer, the issuing official shall not issue a warrant for arrest and instead shall issue a criminal summons, unless one of the following circumstances exists: [...]