The North Carolina General Statutes require the senior resident superior court judge to issue a local bail policy, in consultation with the chief district court judge or judges. G.S. 15A-535(a). At the Criminal Justice Innovation Lab, we’ve had a lot of requests for help updating these policies. And we understand why. Doing this work is no easy matter, given that North Carolina law includes a ton of statutory rules and exceptions and areas for discretionary policy choices. Back in the Spring of 2021, we issued the first version of the Model Policy. Recently we posted the latest version. It’s online here, as the first item under “Implement.” What’s new with this version? This version incorporates some small statutory changes and a bunch of new sample tools. We also made a formatting change, splitting out the Appendix, which contains sample tools, colloquies and related material, into a separate document that you can link to from the Model Policy. More on that in a minute. The Model Policy is designed to be a template for revising local bail policies. It includes all of the statutory rules and exceptions and sets out areas for discretionary policy choices, detailing options in explanatory notes and providing alternative language to accommodate a range of policy decisions. When it comes to those discretionary policy decisions we are – as always – policy neutral. That means that we’ve set out alternatives and it’s up to you to choose which one works best for your community. Here's an overview of [...]
Faculty Coordinators
