North Carolina
Restoration of Rights Project – North Carolina Profile
Guide to restoration of rights, pardon, sealing & expungement following a North Carolina criminal conviction
Collateral Consequences Assessment Tool (C-CAT) Database
Searchable online inventory of collateral consequences under North Carolina law maintained by the University of North Carolina School of Government
Relief from a Criminal Conviction: A Digital Guide to Expunctions, Certificates of Relief, and Other Procedures in North Carolina (2017 edition)
John Rubin, University of North Carolina, School of Government
Related blog posts:
- Waiting for Relief: A National Survey of Waiting Periods for Record Clearing (2/23/2022) - Our new report is the first-ever comprehensive national survey of the period of time a person, who is otherwise eligible to expunge or seal a misdemeanor or felony conviction record, must wait before obtaining this relief. Waiting periods are usually established by statute and can range from 0 to 20 years. Typically, during a waiting period the person must be [...]
- Illinois set to become fifth state to cover criminal record discrimination in its fair employment law (2/13/2021) - NOTE: Governor Pritzker signed S1480 into law on March 23. In our recent report on criminal record reforms enacted in 2020, we noted that there were only four states that had fully incorporated criminal record into their fair employment law as a prohibited basis of discrimination. These states (New York, Wisconsin, Hawaii, and California) provide that employers can only disqualify [...]
- Legislative update: third quarter 2019 sees more new licensing and expungement laws (10/11/2019) - In July we reported on the extraordinary number of new laws enacted in the first half of 2019 aimed at restoring rights and status after arrest and conviction. A total of 97 separate pieces of legislation, some covering multiple topics, were enacted by 38 states and many broke new ground in their jurisdictions. Moreover, clear trends begun in 2018 accelerated in [...]
- Two Southern states enact impressive occupational licensing reforms (9/18/2019) - The 2019 legislative session saw two Southern states enact impressive new laws limiting the ability of occupational licensing boards to exclude qualified applicants based on their criminal record. North Carolina and Mississippi each passed strong new substantive and procedural licensing rules, and both of the new laws show the influence of the Model Law developed by the Institute for Justice. [...]
- Searchable on-line inventories of collateral consequences: How they operate and how they are maintained (4/12/2019) - There are currently only three on-line collections of collateral consequences, one national and two state-specific (Ohio and North Carolina). All three can be searched and sorted, and all three are regularly updated, making them indispensable practice tools for lawyers and essential guides for advocates and people with a criminal record. Each of these inventories is described below by the individuals [...]
- Sex offender consequences in the Supreme Court – what’s ahead? (7/18/2017) - “The Supreme Court’s Mixed Signals in Packingham” is the title of a thoughtful comment by Bidish Sarma analyzing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Packingham v. North Carolina, recently published on the American Constitution Society website. (An early analysis of the Packingham decision by Wayne Logan appeared on this site on June 20.) Mr. Sarma proposes that “the time has come [...]
- SCOTUS invalidates law criminalizing sex offender access to social media (6/20/2017) - Departing from its customary reluctance to find fault with laws singling out convicted sex offenders for harsh treatment, after they have completed their sentences, the Supreme Court in Packingham v. North Carolina yesterday struck down a state law making it a felony for registered sex offenders to access commercial social networking websites. The petitioner in Packingham, a registered sex offender, violated [...]
- Court rules sex offenders cannot be barred from social media (6/20/2017) - The Supreme Court ruled on June 19, without dissent, that sex offenders cannot constitutionally be barred from social-networking sites. SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe introduced the Court’s ‘s holding in Packingham v. North Carolina as follows: In 2002, Lester Packingham became a convicted sex offender at the age of 21, after he pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with a child – having [...]
- Supreme Court considers restrictions on sex offender access to internet (2/27/2017) - This morning the Supreme Court considered whether sex offenders may constitutionally be barred from internet access to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Lester Packingham, who was required to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to taking “indecent liberties” with a minor when he was a 21-year-old college student, ran afoul of a North Carolina criminal statute when [...]
- New research report: Four Years of Second Chance Reforms, 2013-2016 (2/8/2017) - Introduction Since 2013, almost every state has taken at least some steps to chip away at the negative effects of a criminal record on an individual’s ability to earn a living, access housing, education and public benefits, and otherwise fully participate in civil society. It has not been an easy task, in part because of the volume and complexity of [...]