Some FAQ about Place of Confinement

The chart available here summarizes the rules for the proper place of confinement for felonies, misdemeanors, and impaired driving. But additional questions come up from time to time that don’t fit neatly in a chart. Today’s post attempts to answer some of them. If a person is being sentenced for both felonies and misdemeanors, can the judge order the misdemeanor sentences to be served in prison? No. No statute allows the judge to depart from the otherwise applicable place-of-confinement rule for a sentence based on the other sentences to which the defendant is subject. Each judgement should stand on its own, with the felonies committed to DAC and the misdemeanors and DWI sentences committed to the local jail or the Statewide Misdemeanor Confinement Program (SMCP) as required by law. Does that mean a concurrent misdemeanor sentence won’t actually begin until the felony sentences are complete? No. Just because the place of confinement identified for the misdemeanor is the local jail or the SMCP does not mean that time cannot run off the misdemeanor sentences while the defendant is in prison. If the sentences are set to run concurrently, time will tick off them while the defendant is in prison just as it would if he or she were in the jail. That is true not just as a matter of common sense, but also by statute: under G.S. 15-6.2, a person serving concurrent sentences shall not be required to serve any additional time solely because the sentences are required to be [...]