Sealed Indictments

Blame it on the pandemic, I suppose, but somehow I missed this interesting article from March of last year that looked into how often (and why) search warrants are sealed in North Carolina. Former SOG faculty member Michael Crowell was quoted in the article, and his blog post discussing the significance of In re Cooper, 200 N.C. App. 180 (2009) for sealed warrants is available here. I highly recommend reading both, if you haven't already seen them Those articles reminded me of a similar issue that I've occasionally had questions about, but I don't think we've ever covered on this blog. What about sealed indictments? Authorized, but Limited: When I was in state court practice, sealed indictments were extremely rare. In most criminal cases, the defendant has already been charged by some other process long before the state seeks an indictment, so there is simply no reason to have it sealed. But for charges connected to an ongoing drug trafficking investigation, indictments involving confidential juvenile records (an issue that Jacqui Greene flagged here), or a case that involves cooperators or witnesses whose identities need to be protected, the state may decide that it is necessary to avoid publicly disclosing the fact that the defendant has been indicted, at least for a while. Is that allowed? The short answer is yes, it is. The authorization for it is found in G.S. 15A-623(f), which says: The presiding judge may direct that a bill of indictment be kept secret until the defendant is arrested [...]