No Appeal for District Court Probationers Who Waive Their Right to a Hearing

Under G.S. 15A-1347(b), if a defendant waives a probation revocation hearing in district court, he or she may not appeal the revocation or imposition of a split sentence to superior court for a de novo violation hearing. That law was enacted in 2013 as part of legislation designed to streamline the superior court caseload, focusing it on contested cases and those implicating a defendant’s right to a jury trial. S.L. 2013-385. I wrote a post about that law in 2014, here, wondering about some of the then-new law’s wrinkles. The Court of Appeals considered its first case under G.S. 15A-1347(b) last year in State v. Flanagan, 2021-NCCOA-456, 279 N.C. App. 228 (2021). In Flanagan, the defendant was on probation for two misdemeanor offenses. While on probation, he pled guilty to several new crimes, including felony larceny and attempted assault with a deadly weapon on a government official. His probation officer also alleged absconding and numerous technical violations. The violations were heard in district court, where the defendant “both waived his violation hearing and admitted he violated the conditions of probation.” The district court revoked his probation and activated his suspended sentences in the misdemeanor cases. After learning his probation was being revoked, the defendant ran out of the courtroom but was quickly apprehended, whereupon he appealed to superior court. A couple of months later the defendant appeared in superior court, where the judge considered the appealed district court violations in addition to new violations in his felony cases. The superior court [...]