Three-Judge Panels for Constitutional Challenges

I’ve been asked several times about the new requirement that facial challenges to the constitutionality of state statutes be heard by a three-judge panel in Wake County. Does the requirement mean that facial challenges to statutes regarding criminal procedure must be heard in Raleigh? (As an example, consider State v. Thompson, 349 N.C. 483 (1998), where the defendant mounted a facial challenge to the special pretrial release procedures for domestic violence cases set forth in G.S. 15A-534.1.) What about facial challenges to substantive criminal laws, like State v. Whiteley, 172 N.C. App. 772 (2005), where the defendant presented a facial challenge to G.S. 14-177, the crime against nature statute? The answer to both questions is no, as explained below. The new requirement. For some time, G.S. 1-267.1 has provided for “a three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Wake County” to hear redistricting cases. Section 18B.16.(a) of the 2014 budget bill amends the statute to require that, “[e]xcept as otherwise provided . . . any facial challenge to the validity of an act of the General Assembly” must be transferred to Wake County and heard by a three-judge panel. The three judges are to be resident superior court judges, selected by the Chief Justice and drawn from different regions of the state. Lack of application to criminal cases. The bill adds new subsection (d) to the statute, which provides that “[t]his section applies only to civil proceedings. Nothing in this section shall be deemed to apply to criminal proceedings, to proceedings [...]