Justice

Modernizations of NC court system increases public access to justice and restores opportunity for more than 10,000 North Carolinians in the first week of processing

• NC’s 2020 Second Chance Act law allowed for the record clearance of charges disposed of as not guilty or dismissed.
• This provision was paused because of technical and administrative issues until SL 2024-35 restored processing of these expunctions along as the new eCourts case records is able to keep cleared records confidential AND allows access to district attorneys, which was not provided under the previous law.
• Since NC Administrative Office of Courts began the automation of clearing these records on 7/23/24 they are processing an average of 10,000 eligible cases per week.

Raleigh, N.C. – An estimated 10,000 criminal charges brought against North Carolinians that were dismissed or disposed with not guilty determinations were cleared by the NC Administrative Office of Courts in the first week the court system resumed processing of these records.

A key portion of the Second Chance Act—passed with bipartisan support in 2020—provided for the automatic clearing of certain charges that are dismissed or resulted in a finding of not guilty, dramatically increased record clearance relief for North Carolinians. Because of technical and administrative reasons, the automatic expunction of those charges was paused on August 1, 2022.  The North Carolina General Assembly restarted the process of clearing these records with this session’s passage of Senate Bill 565/S.L. 2024-35. Per this policy AOC is to resume processing these records between 180-210 days after court disposition as well as begin processing the cases that had accumulated during the pause, which are to be processed within 365 days from July 1, 2024.

“North Carolinians overwhelmingly support common sense policy solutions that increase opportunity and allow individuals a fair chance to work. Most individuals do not realize that a dismissed or not guilty charge remains on their record, risking employment and other opportunities,” said Tarrah Callahan, Executive Director of Conservatives for Criminal Justice Reform. “We are proud to see the restoration of opportunity to more than 10,000 North Carolinians within the first week of the resumption of the clearance of these records.

Polling commission by the N.C. Chamber of Commerce in June of this year showed broad, bipartisan support for a variety of policy options that provide opportunity and workforce solutions. Both the automated expunction of not guilty/dismissed charges and efforts to modernize the state’s court system polled favorably across all respondents.

“We’re all used to accessing anything we want anywhere we want it thanks to technology. It’s exciting to see the court systems working to similarly expand access to justice for citizens of North Carolina,” said Callahan. “We certainly expect the judicial branch to address any concerns about issues that have arisen during this effort, but those are to be expected in an effort to modernize the state court system. The trade off in expansion of public access to justice, will be well worth any growing pains.”

Updates from Judicial Branch on eCourts Transition and Automated Record Clearance for Dismissed and Not Guilty Charges

• The eCourts transition represents a historic increase in access to justice, as the North Carolina Administrative Office of Courts and local courts provide the public the ability to file and search records online. 
  • It further accommodates the renewed processing of automatic expunctions now required by G.S. 15A-146(a4) of cases that were dismissed or disposed as not guilty or not responsible. 
  • North Carolina’s new eCourts software provides the solutions proposed and implemented in Senate Bill 565/SL 2024-35 to automatically expunge a significant volume of cases but retain records electronically. 
  • Multi-tiered software applications in the eCourts system allow NCAOC to delay the deletion of electronic records, retain digital court files confidentially, and provide restricted access to files in electronic format to authorized parties, capabilities not previously available to state courts. 
• As of July 22, 2024, the eCourts case management system is live in 38 counties, completing 5 of 10 tracks of implementation in local district and superior courts and serving approximately half of North Carolina’s population. 
  • Through this progress, the eCourts expunction software is now used by court officials to manage expunged cases statewide (including in counties not fully transitioned to eCourts case management systems, through integrations of legacy applications that feed expunged case records into the eCourts software).  
• The NCAOC renewed the daily processing of automatic expunctions for eligible cases on 7/23/24 at a rate of approximately 2,500 cases per day, or an estimated 10,000 cases per week.  Automatic expunctions have restarted and are now processed as a daily job programmed to expunge all eligible cases statewide that were disposed 195 days prior to the date of processing