News Roundup

Nationwide, the biggest criminal law news of the week comes out of Florida, where Casey Anthony was found not guilty of the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee. I personally did not follow the case closely, but many of those who did were apparently surprised by the result. Anthony was convicted of four counts of providing false information to authorities and sentenced to one year in jail for each, to run consecutively. But with credit for the time she has already spent in jail plus applicable sentence reduction credits, she’s set to be released before the end of the month. Commentary on the case runs the gamut, with some calling the acquittal “an inexplicable blunder and a miscarriage of justice” and others saying “the system worked.” Anthony’s misdemeanor sentences call to mind a couple points of North Carolina criminal law. In Florida, “good time” for jail inmates is apparently a matter of local county policy. Not so in North Carolina where, for the most part, the state Department of Correction’s “regulations concerning earned time credits . . . shall be distributed to and followed by local jail administrators . . . .” G.S. 148-13(e). The most recent version of those regulations (effective May 31, 2011) is available here. Also note that in North Carolina it would not be permissible to max and stack all four of those misdemeanor sentences. Under G.S. 15A-1340.22(a), the cumulative length of consecutive misdemeanor sentences cannot exceed twice the maximum sentence authorized for the class and prior conviction [...]