But after the initial anxiety of the arrest – after the person has bonded out of custodyCustody is a general term used describe a condition where an individual does not feel free to leave, as the result of a show of police authority. A person in custody must be read his Miranda rights before being questioned by police. Custody includes arrest, but may be broader than arrest. and hired me to provide aggressive representation – my clients are often concerned about the publicity associated with an arrest.

Of course, the vast majority of criminal arrests don’t make front page news. But every arrest is a public record. And felony arrests – where a person’s photograph is taken by the CCBICCBI is Wake County's local crime lab. Housed in the Public Safety Center, it provides fingerprinting services, as well as support in crime scene investigations to law enforcement agencies in Wake County. (City-County Bureau of IdentificationCCBI is Wake County's local crime lab. Housed in the Public Safety Center, it provides fingerprinting services, as well as support in crime scene investigations to law enforcement agencies in Wake County.) agents in the jail – almost always result in a photograph on WRAL’s photogallery or in The Slammer’s pages.

It’s unfortunate. Ten years ago, an arrest of this sort would go unnoticed. But in the internet age, where everyone has access to the web, and websites are crawled by Google, if you’ve got a unique name, an arrest may leave a lasting record.

What can you do?

The bad news is that there’s usually no legal action that you can take to force a website, such as WRAL, to remove this record from their archives. You might be able to convince them to remove the photograph by being polite and respectful. But they are not required to do so by law because an arrest is a public record.

One option is to create an online profile that puts all the good things about you above all the bad things about you. There are various articles on the web about how to create a postive online profile. If you’re very concerned about the bad image that might formed by viewing an old arrest, you might try to create a postive online profile that will obscure the bad profiles on various websites about your arrest.

More might be done, and you can feel free to call me to discuss possible ways to help avoid a very public, and very embarrassing, image as a result of a Raleigh criminal arrest.

Under the old system, which used a combination of good time, gain time, and parole, a person would be sentenced to a comparatively wide range of possible sentences by a judge, only to have the actual sentence determined by the Department of CorrectionsA prison is a facility, operated by the Department of Corrections in North Carolina or the Bureau of PrisonsA prison is a facility, operated by the Department of Corrections in North Carolina or the Bureau of Prisons in the federal system, where an offender is sent to serve an active prison sentence of some length. in the federal system, where an offender is sent to serve an active prison sentence of some length.. While the purported sentence could be very lengthy, the actual sentence served was more often than not much more lenient.

This indeterminacy in sentencing created the impression of leniency, especially when someone was sentenced to a long sentence, but was released much earlier, and then went on to commit additional crimes.

In 1994, North Carolina implemented Structure Sentencing, which gave the judge discretion, but only within a narrow band of possible punishments depending on the level of the crime and the person’s prior record level.

How has this system performed? Virtually every year the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission releases Citizen Guides to structured sentencingStructured sentencing replaced Fair Sentencing in 1994. It created a felony sentencing chart and a misdemeanor sentencing chart in which most, but not all, punishments are imposed according to the level of the crime, and the individual's prior record level. in North Carolina. These guides are useful explanations of how this system works in North Carolina.

I’ve reproduced the section from NCGS 14-196 below for your information.

If you have any questions about this crime, feel free to call me, a Raleigh criminal lawyer, at (919) 352-9411 weekdays, evenings, or weekends.

N.C.G.S. 14-196. Using profane, indecent or threatening language to any person over telephone; annoying or harassing by repeated telephoning or making false statements over telephone. 

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person:

(1) To use in telephonic communications any words or language of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious or indecent character, nature or connotation;

(2) To use in telephonic communications any words or language threatening to inflict bodily harm to any person or to that person’s child, sibling, spouse, or dependent or physical injury to the property of any person, or for the purpose of extorting money or other things of value from any person;

(3) To telephone another repeatedly, whether or not conversation ensues, for the purpose of abusing, annoying, threatening, terrifying, harassing or embarrassing any person at the called number;

(4) To make a telephone call and fail to hang up or disengage the connection with the intent to disrupt the service of another;

(5) To telephone another and to knowingly make any false statement concerning death, injury, illness, disfigurement, indecent conduct or criminal conduct of the person telephoned or of any member of his family or household with the intent to abuse, annoy, threaten, terrify, harass, or embarrass;

(6) To knowingly permit any telephone under his control to be used for any purpose prohibited by this section.

(b) Any of the above offenses may be deemed to have been committed at either the place at which the telephone call or calls were made or at the place where the telephone call or calls were received. For purposes of this section, the term “telephonic communications” shall include communications made or received by way of a telephone answering machine or recorder, telefacsimile machine, or computer modem.

(c) Anyone violating the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.

The DA subpoenaed the records from Facebook which showed that someone had logged into Facebook from Bradford’s father’s apartment in Harlem and had made an entry on Bradford’s page at the time Bradford was supposedly robbing another person.

Facebook has been involved in various kinds of criminal cases before.  For instance, jurors have been dismissedA dismissal may occur upon a motion by a party, or by the prosecutor. A voluntary dismissal is a true dismissal where the charges are no longer pending. A dismissal with leave, also known as a VL, is a method of the prosecutor places the case into a holding pattern, usually because the defendant has failed to come to court on an assigned court date. from juries for making inappropriate comments on Facebook in the midst of a trial.  And in civil cases, Facebook has been used to serve subpoenas or other notices on parties to a lawsuit.

But this is the first time that Facebook has been used to show that a defendant was actually not guilty of a crime because he had an alibi.