Probation Tolling Repealed

I’ve mentioned the big legislative changes pending in HB 642 (the Justice Reinvestment Act, which was discussed in House Appropriations this morning), but I haven’t written about an important criminal bill that’s already been signed into law. It’s Session Law 2011-62 (HB 270), Amend Conditions of Probation, which the Governor signed on May 3. The law makes multiple changes to the Probation article of Chapter 15A. It amends G.S. 15A-1343(b)(2) (regular condition #5 on the judgment form), which required probationers to “remain within the jurisdiction of the court.” There was always some confusion about what that condition meant by jurisdiction, though case law and Division of Community Corrections (DCC) policy interpreted it to mean the entire State of North Carolina (as I discussed in this post). The new law removes any confusion by striking “jurisdiction of the court” and replacing it with a requirement that probationers remain “accessible to the probation officer by making the defendant’s whereabouts known to the officer,” and that they “not leave the county of residence or the State of North Carolina” unless granted permission by the court or the probation officer. So now all probationers—not just those subject to intermediate punishment and therefore bound by the special intermediate condition set out in G.S. 15A-1343(b4)—are required to remain within their county of residence. The new law adds new regular condition G.S. 15A-1343(b)(16), requiring all supervised probationers to “[s]upply a breath, urine, or blood specimen for analysis of the possible presence of prohibited drugs or alcohol when instructed [...]