North Carolina s Criminal Justice System

Transcription

1 North Carolina s Criminal Justice System

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3 North Carolina s Criminal Justice System Paul Knepper Associate Professor East Carolina University Carolina Academic Press Durham, North Carolina

4 Copyright 1999 Paul Knepper All Rights Reserved ISBN X LCCN 99- Carolina Academic Press 700 Kent Street Durham, North Carolina Telephone (919) Fax (919) Printed in the United States of America

5 Contents ix Chapter 1 Crime 3 Crime Rates and Trends, 5 Delinquency Rates, 8 Murder Rates, 11 Southern Subculture of Violence, 12 Southern Stereotypes and Southern Culture, 16 A Subculture of Violence in North Carolina?, 20 Chapter 2 The Constitution 27 Three Constitutions and Criminal Justice, 28 Declaration of Rights, 34 Legal Authority, 38 Financing Criminal Justice, 43 Chapter 3 Lawmaking 49 The Common Law, 50 The State Supreme Court, 51 The General Assembly, 57 The General Assembly at Work, 59 Local Lawmaking, 65 Governor s Crime Commission, 66 African Americans in the General Assembly, 68 v

6 Chapter 4 Law Enforcement 73 State Agencies, 75 County Agencies, 85 Municipal Police, 90 African Americans and Law Enforcement, 95 Chapter 5 Prosecution and Defense 101 Office of Attorney General, 102 The District Attorney, 104 Public Defenders and the Defense Bar, 112 Race Relations and the Legal Profession, 115 Chapter 6 Courts and Adjudication 121 Court Unification, 122 Court Structure, 126 The Adjudication Process, 132 African Americans and the Judiciary, 144 Chapter 7 Corrections 149 County Jails, 151 History and Organization of State Corrections, 157 The Department of Correction, 163 The Death Penalty, 169 Race, Roads, and Convict Labor, 173 Chapter 8 Juvenile Justice 179 Beginnings of Juvenile Justice, 180 Delinquency Prevention Programs, 186 Intake, 188 Adjudication, 190 Disposition, 193 Meeting the Needs of African American Youth, 200

7 vii Chapter 9 The Federal Presence 205 Federal and State Jurisdiction, 207 Law Enforcement, 209 Prosecution and Defense, 214 Courts, 217 Corrections, 223 Federal Assistance to States, 228 African Americans and the Federal System, 230 Chapter 10 Education and Training 235 Preservice Training, 236 College Education, 244 Graduate School, 249 Law School, 251 Career Opportunities, 254 Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 262 Chapter 11 Victims and Related Social Services 267 Crime Victims, 269 Domestic Violence Victims, 275 Rape Victims, 279 Child Abuse Victims, 281 Legal Aid Societies, 284 Index 289

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9 Many students of criminal justice in North Carolina know that basketball great Michael Jordan grew up in Wilmington, that Pepsi Cola began at a drugstore in New Bern, that the Wright Brothers achieved the first flight at Kitty Hawk, and that evangelist Billy Graham attended church in Charlotte as a boy. North Carolina opened the first public university, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and boasts the largest private residence ever built in the United States, the Biltmore House and Garden near Asheville. How many students of criminal justice in North Carolina know about North Carolina s criminal justice system? Until 1996, North Carolina was the only state in which the governor had no veto power over the legislature. It is the only state in which prosecutors set the criminal trial calendar, and it operates a unique system of judicial rotation. North Carolina has one of the most unified court systems and the most decentralized prison system. There are about a hundred individual prisons in North Carolina, more than any other state. The Declaration of Rights, written into the state constitution, grants more rights to citizens than the Bill of Rights in the federal constitution. How many know the name of Henry Frye, who became the first African American on the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1983? Or Suzie Sharpe, the first woman? Or, James Edward O Hara, who in 1868 became one of the first African Americans licensed to practice law in the state, or Margaret Ham- ix

10 x brick, who became the first woman to administrate a federal prison when she became warden at the Federal Correctional Institution at Butner. Or what about Thomas Ruffin, whose reputation as a jurist saved the state supreme court, or James Iredell and Alfred Moore, two North Carolinians who served on the U.S. Supreme Court. Then there was David Marshall Williams, who invented the M-1 Carbine while serving time on a North Carolina prison farm and helped the Allies win World War II; and Joseph Hyde Pratt, whose good roads and good men campaign led to the state system of chain gang roadwork in North Carolina that employed more convicts for more years than any other state. And Z. Smith Reynolds, who was murdered in his home, and which would have led to the most sensational trial in state history. In part, my aim in writing this book is to recognize some significant firsts in North Carolina s criminal justice history. But the main purpose is to explain how North Carolina s criminal justice system developed as it did, and how it resembles and diverges from the systems of other states. The first chapter covers crime in the state, followed by chapters in lawmaking, the state constitution, law enforcement, courts and adjudication, and corrections. The last four chapters cover juvenile justice, education and training, the federal presence, and victims and related social services. This book began as an effort to give my students concrete examples drawn from North Carolina s experience of the institutions and practices of criminal justice that are described in the introductory textbooks. Textbooks designed for a national audience overlook significant aspects of state systems because it is difficult to generalize about criminal justice in the United States. Although commonly used today, few people used the term criminal justice system before Rather, people thought of prosecutors, police, jails, prisons, courts, and so on as separate agencies of government. The idea that all these agencies to-

11 xi gether made up a national system began with an American Bar Foundation (ABF) study commissioned by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Jackson in 1953 (Remington 1990; Walker 1992). The ABF study provided a way to understand the flow of cases from police arrest to release from prison; the relationship between courts, police departments, and corrections agencies; and the process of decision making by those who apply criminal law. But the idea of a single national criminal justice system also blurs the fact that criminal justice is a collection of federal, state, and county systems. The system of ciminal justice that developed in the world s premiere democracy is like no other. Understanding the criminal justice system requires more than knowing the statistics, the flowcharts, and the legal terms. The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights the founding documents of the American democracy are preserved in a special vault in the National Archives for all to see. Thousands of visitors to the nation s capital view them everyday. But these documents do not mean much unless people understand how the principles they contain are to be found in the places they live and work. The ideas of liberty, freedom, equality, and justice that were written about in Philadelphia 200 years ago only mean as much as the day-to-day activities of a deputy sheriff in Buncombe County, a correctional officer at Central Prison in Raleigh, an attorney assigned to represent a defendant in Halifax, or a juvenile court counselor in Lincoln County. So in order to appreciate the significance of agencies that make up North Carolina s criminal justice system, I have used race relations as a benchmark. Each chapter includes a section on the place of African Americans in the system. Crime rates, as I explain in chapter 1, reflect demographic changes in age structure and other features of society. Crime rates are not a reliable measure of the effectiveness of the system. Rather, crime and criminal justice are both part of the larger society. They

12 xii both originate in the social, political, cultural and economic factors that have shaped the history of this state and that make the people of North Carolina what they are today. It is the administering of the system that provides the best measure of criminal justice. It is a standard as old as the law of Moses, Ye shall have one manner of law, as well as for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God (Lev ). Viewing North Carolina s criminal justice system with this standard in mind is a subtheme of this book. My approach to African Americans in North Carolina s criminal justice system describes the process of institutionbuilding, not the behavior of Whites toward Blacks. White people in North Carolina enacted slave codes and Jim Crow laws, designed prison farms and road gangs, and maintained separate colleges and courtrooms. But my aim is not so much to talk about what some White people did as to celebrate the achievements of Black North Carolinians who, despite the structures of exclusion, distinguished themselves in the legislature, judiciary, law enforcement, corrections, law, and juvenile justice system. My goal is to show something of the contribution that African Americans have made to North Carolina s criminal justice system. The information in this book has been pulled together from a variety of federal, state, and local government publications, as well as from books, articles and directories. Lisa A. Marcus s North Carolina Manual 1995/1996, published by the Department of the Secretary of State, and Joan G. Brannon s The Judi - cial System in North Carolina, published by the Administrative Office of the Courts, provide excellent descriptions of key elements of North Carolina s criminal justice system (Brannon 1994; Marcus 1995). The publications of the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill are an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to know about North Carolina s political institutions. I would like to acknowl-

13 xiii edge the expertise of the Institute faculty whose books and articles I have relied on throughout this book: Joan Brannon, Stevens Clarke, Anne Dellinger, James Drennan, Robert Farb, David Lawrence, John Orth, and Janet Mason. I also would like to thank those who gave me information, answered my questions, and helped me understand: Mavis G. Williams, Consultant, Community-Based Alternatives, Greenville Yolanda Burwell, Associate Professor of Social Work, East Carolina University Charles Newton, Director, Stonewall Jackson School, Concord W.H. Payne, Professional Standards/Inspections Sergeant, Raleigh Police Department Thomas Haigwood, District Attorney, Pitt County William A. Webb, Federal Public Defender, Eastern District, Raleigh Janice Mckenzie Cole, U.S. Attorney, Eastern District, Raleigh Malcolm J. Howard, Judge, U.S. District Court, Eastern District, Greenville Daniel K. Martin, Chief U.S. Probation Officer, Eastern District, Raleigh James M. Campbell, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, East Carolina University James B. French, Warden, Central Prison, Raleigh Marjorie Shahravar, Public Information Assistant, Department of Correction, Raleigh Glen Mills, Chief, Judicial Division One, Divison of Adult Probation/Parole, Greenville Don Stacy, Librarian, Justice Academy, Salemburg

14 xiv Patty McQuillan, Director of Public Information, Department of Correction, Raleigh Earl Ijames, Archivist, Department of Archives, Raleigh The generosity of these individuals made much of the information in this book possible. I bear sole responsibility for the analyses and interpretations expressed here, as well as for all errors and omissions. If you have information you would like to share about North Carolina s firsts in criminal justice, or any aspect of this book, please let me know. Thank you. References Brannon, Joan G The judicial system in North Carolina. Raleigh: North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts. Marcus, Lisa A North Carolina manual 1995/1996. Raleigh: North Carolina Secretary of State. Remington, Frank J Development of criminal justice as an academic field. Journal of Criminal Justice Education 1:9-20. Walker, Samuel Origins of the contemporary criminal justice paradigm: The American Bar Foundation survey, Justice Quarterly 9:47-76.