Results from Empirical Evaluation of NC Judicial District 30B Bail Project

After former Chief Justice Mark Martin’s North Carolina Commission on the Administration of Law and Justice issued its final report recommending that North Carolina embark on bail reform pilot projects, North Carolina Judicial District 30B launched the first such project. Judicial District 30B consists of two rural counties in Western North Carolina: Haywood and Jackson. Among other things, the district is not served by a public defender, has no pretrial services, and in one of the counties caseloads are such that District Court is not held daily. The collaborative pilot project was led by Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Bradley Letts and involved a broad range of stakeholders including the District Attorney, local defense lawyers, District Court judges, magistrates, clerks of court, police chiefs, representatives from the Sheriffs’ departments, and more. I supported stakeholders efforts, and as I describe in more detail in a report here, stakeholders unanimously adopted five reforms: Implement a new decision-making framework for determining conditions of pretrial release. Provide first appearance proceedings for all in-custody defendants. Provide for the early involvement of counsel at pretrial proceedings. Promote the increased use of summons in lieu of arrest in appropriate cases. Promote the increased use of citation in lieu of arrest in appropriate cases. Reforms took effect January 1, 2019. The first reform involved adoption of a structured decision-making tool designed to focus decision-makers on a series of defendant- and offense-specific factors relevant to the pretrial decision. The tool also expressly incorporated into decision-making the statutory mandate that a [...]