State v. Kerrin, 209 N.C. App. 72 (Jan. 4, 2011)

(1) The trial court improperly ordered a forfeiture of the defendant’s licensing privileges without making a finding of fact required by G.S. 15A-1331A that the defendant failed to make reasonable efforts to comply with the conditions of her probation. The court noted that form AOC-CR-317 does not contain a section specifically designated for the required finding and encouraged revision of the form to add this required finding. (2) The term of the forfeiture exceeded statutory limits. A trial court revoking probation may order a license forfeiture under G.S. 15A-1331A(b)(2) at any time during the probation term, but the term of forfeiture cannot exceed the original probation term set by the sentencing court at the time of conviction. The defendant was placed on 24 months probation by the sentencing court, to end on December 15, 2009. His probation was revoked on Apr. 1, 2009, eight months before his probation was set to expire, and the trial court ordered the forfeiture for 24 months from the date of revocation. Because the forfeiture term extended beyond the defendant’s original probation, it was invalid. The court encouraged further revision of AOC-CR-317 (specifically the following note: “The ‘Beginning Date’ is the date of the entry of this judgment, and the ‘Ending Date’ is the date of the end of the full probationary term imposed at the time of conviction.”) “to clarify this issue and perhaps avoid future errors based upon misinterpretation of the form.”