Criminal Law Reform

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) is violating the rights of disabled pre-trial detainees in NC jails by failing to ensure timely evaluations and treatment for people who lack capacity to understand the legal proceedings against them, according to a federal lawsuit.

The ACLU, ACLU of North Carolina, and Patterson Harkavy LLP have sued the NC prison system on behalf of Kanautica Zayre-Brown, a transgender woman incarcerated at Anson CI, for failing to provide her essential gender-affirming health care.

Eric James was convicted under North Carolina’s felon-in-possession statute, which categorically strips anyone with a felony conviction of their right to own or possess a firearm, regardless of how minor or nonviolent the underlying offense was, how long ago it happened, or whether the person poses any danger today. Ducker challenged his conviction, arguing that applying this lifetime ban to him violated both the Second Amendment and the North Carolina Constitution. The Court of Appeals rejected his challenge without conducting an individualized analysis, concluding that all people with felony convictions are automatically excluded from Second Amendment protection. The ACLU of NC and the Cato Institute filed a joint amicus brief urging the North Carolina Supreme Court to reverse that ruling. People do not lose their constitutional rights just because they have been convicted of a felony. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Bruen (2022) and Rahimi (2024) require courts to evaluate gun restrictions like the felon-in-possession statute on a case-by-case basis. North Carolina’s statute sweeps far too broadly, stripping people of their constitutional rights for offenses as minor as digging up a Venus flytrap or changing the mileage on a vehicle’s odometer. Violent crimes account for only 16.4% of all felony charges statewide, yet this statute applies to individuals convicted of nonviolent crimes in the same way as if they were convicted of first degree murder. The impact of the law falls particularly hard on rural and Black North Carolinians, who are disproportionately impacted by both felony convictions and the loss of firearm rights. Instead of keeping people safe, the law furthers the cycle of mass incarceration by sending people who have completed their sentences back to prison solely for exercising a constitutional right. We urge the Court to hold that the felon-in-possession statute cannot be constitutionally applied to people who pose no danger and to remand for an individualized constitutional review of Ducker’s conviction.