Bill > H173

This bill makes several changes to North Carolina's criminal laws, including extending the deadline for paying fines, penalties, or costs from 20 to 40 days before a failure to appear is reported to the Division, and requiring the Administrative Office of the Courts to report annually on cases where defendants withdraw appeals for trial de novo and the case is sent back to district court. It also allows certain magistrates to accept waivers of counsel for potentially capital offenses, permits magistrates to accept guilty pleas and enter judgments for the offense of being intoxicated and disruptive in public, and clarifies that probation supervision continues under the same conditions during an appeal of a probation revocation. Furthermore, the bill updates the definition of "mentally retarded" to "intellectual disability" in the context of prohibiting the death penalty for such individuals, and allows for the electronic or facsimile transmission of expunction information between agencies. It also changes the mandatory doubling of a bond for defendants on pretrial release for a prior offense to a permissive option, allows for the retention of DNA samples in lieu of bulky biological evidence, and permits the use of an affidavit from a custodian of business records to prove authenticity in court, rather than requiring their in-person testimony, with advance notice to other parties. Finally, the bill revises requirements for bail bond continuing education providers, specifying that courses must be approved by the Commissioner and cannot be offered solely online.