Persons charged with Class H or I felonies or any misdemeanor except Driving under the Influence can earn a dismissal of the charges by participating in a Deferred Prosecution or a Conditional Discharge. This blog focuses on a comparison of these alternatives to prosecution.
Both the deferral and the conditional discharge have the same pre-requisites:
(1) The victim has been notified and given an opportunity to be heard,
(2) Defendant has no moral turpitude prior convictions,
(3) Defendant has never been placed on probation and
(4) The defendant is unlikely to commit another offense, other than a Class 3 misdemeanor, in the future. (NCGS§ 15A-1341(a1), (a4)).
In a Formal Deferral, the prosecutor enters into a written agreement with the defendant prior to trial. The agreement lists the terms by which the defendant can obtain a dismissal. The defendant may or may not admit responsibility or guilt to the charge but in either case, the admission does not constitute a plea of guilty. If the defendant fails to abide by the terms of the deferral, he is still free to proceed to trial. (State v. Ross (2005) 173 N.C. App. 569, 620 S.E.2d 33.)1
But if the defendant goes to trial and gets convicted, or if the prosecutor requires a guilty plea as a pre-requisite to participation, a Conditional Discharge is the procedural mechanism to earn a dismissal.
If a defendant fails to abide by the terms of the Conditional Discharge, judgment is entered on the conviction. But if the defendant successfully fulfills the terms of the Conditional Discharge, any plea or finding of guilty previously entered is withdrawn and the court must discharge the person and dismiss the proceedings.
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1) A defendant does not plead guilty simply by admitting his guilt in fact to an offense. A guilty plea is a formal process that requires the formal acceptance of the plea by the court and a judicial determination that there was a factual basis for the plea.
