The biggest news locally this week was the General Assembly’s passage of S 416, which will dramatically alter, if not effectively repeal, the Racial Justice Act. I summarized the bill briefly last week and may have more to say about it if and when it becomes law. For now, it’s on the Governor’s desk, though even if she vetoes it, it appears that the bill’s supporters have the votes to override. In other news: This News and Observer story about the implementation of the Justice Reinvestment Act caught my eye. The gist is this: “The theory behind the . . . Act was that more intensive supervision of offenders who had been released into the community would prevent them from returning to prison. Eventually, that approach was supposed to save the state the cost of building more prisons, and make everyone safer. But for all the fanfare about the cutting-edge crime-fighting plan, lawmakers left out one key ingredient: money to pay for probation officers to supervise the newly released prisoners.” Apparently, states across the country are struggling to figure out what to do with defendants who have been diverted from prison – and how to pay for programs that may help them stay out of trouble. The Supreme Court handed down a couple of sentencing decisions yesterday. In a nutshell, Southern Union v. United States applies the Apprendi rule to fines: it holds that any fact that increases a defendant’s statutory maximum fine must be found by a jury beyond a [...]
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