In 2014, North Carolina’s voters approved an amendment to the state constitution. The amendment enabled a criminal defendant charged with a crime in superior court to waive his or her right to a jury trial, and instead have his or her guilt or innocence determined by a judge. I wrote a report about the amendment before it was adopted; I wrote about some of the procedural questions raised by the amendment after it passed; and I wrote about 2015 legislation that changed or clarified the waiver procedures. Now we have an appellate case that addresses two issues pertinent to jury trial waivers, so I thought I’d write about that. Background. G.S. 15A-1201 sets forth the procedure for jury trial waivers. Simplifying a bit, the current version of the statute allows a noncapital criminal defendant to waive his or her right to a jury trial in superior court in any of three ways: (1) at any time, by stipulated agreement with the State; (2) within 10 working days after arraignment or an administrative setting, whichever comes first, by executing a written waiver; or (3) at arraignment or an administrative setting, whichever comes first, by entering an oral waiver on the record. A judge ultimately decides whether to accept the waiver and to hear the case without a jury. State v. Jones. The court of appeals recently decided State v. Jones, a case in which a bench trial was held. Although the case arose before the timing rules summarized above were added to [...]
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