DAC's Auditing Authority

Many of you have received one of those letters: a notice from the N.C. Department of Public Safety, Division of Adult Correction (DAC), Section of Combined Records, seeking “clarification” of a judgment. Combined Records audits judgments as they come in, identifying issues and sentencing errors and bringing them to the attention of the court system. Today’s post considers the legal basis for this review, and some of the issues it raises. DAC’s Records Section is established under G.S. 148-74 to “maintain in a single central file system” all correctional records. Under G.S. 148-76, the records section maintains the “combined case records” of all prison, probation, and parole matters, including all “fingerprints, photographs, and other information to assist in locating, identifying, and keeping records of criminals.” Thus, the name “Combined Records.” No statute directs Combined Records to audit the records it receives and maintains (unlike, for instance, G.S. 20-179.3(k), which directs DMV to review unauthorized limited driving privileges, as Shea discussed here.) But case law supports DAC’s practice. In Hamilton v. Freeman, 147 N.C. App. 195 (2001), a group of inmates filed a class action lawsuit complaining that the then–Department of Correction (DOC) was unilaterally modifying sentences it deemed legally erroneous. For example, if a defendant worked out a plea bargain to concurrent sentences for a crime that required consecutive sentences, DOC would, on its own, change the sentences so they would be served consecutively. The court of appeals said that was obviously not the right thing to do. Even when the [...]