Justice committee  Yes, sir.

Justice committee  Okay, great. There's lots to unpack. All right. When I say we have all of the tools of criminal and civil procedure, I mean all of the tools. We have the ability to get search warrants, just as law enforcement does, because that falls under criminal procedure in North Carolina.

Justice committee  Yes, sir. It is typically the prosecution from the original jurisdiction. There are some exemptions if they are recused. Then the attorney general's office or a special prosecutor can be appointed.

Justice committee  It's like a retrial. The decision is binding. There is no right to appeal the decision, however it goes. The finding of innocence has to be unanimous. The three judges have to be unanimous. If it's two to one for innocence, then it's not a finding of innocence. It has to be a unanimous decision.

Justice committee  It doesn't have to go to the governor. If the case doesn't go to that three-judge panel, there's another process, a motion for appropriate relief process. The prosecution and the defence could file a motion for appropriate relief, as opposed to the three-judge panel process. If they go through that process based on innocence, in order to be declared innocent in North Carolina, then you would have to get a pardon from the governor.

Justice committee  That predates my being at the commission, but looking back at the notes from the study commission, that was really where the compromise was. Chief Justice Lake was one of the former chief justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court. He brought together a group of folks from all across the different areas of the criminal justice system to talk about the causes of wrongful convictions and how we should address wrongful convictions in North Carolina.

Justice committee  Our cases can vary. For an initial review, it takes a couple of weeks, from the time we receive the questionnaire, before we can review the case and decide whether there is any merit to it. After that, it can take a couple of years to fully investigate a case.

Justice committee  Yes, I have—roughly. We have eight commissioners and eight alternate commissioners for each position. The reason is that, sometimes, a commissioner is unavailable due to illness, or they need to be recused from a case because they had some involvement in it or it's from the county where they were the judge—something like that.

Justice committee  I always think we can do better with diversity. I would love to see more diversity on the commission. We are always mindful of that. When I am given the opportunity to make recommendations for commissioners to the chief justice and chief judge, I always include more diversity in that.

Justice committee  Our staff are full-time employees. Our commissioners' role is to hear cases. They hear cases only when we have hearings. We've had two hearings in 2023. This involves them coming to hear those cases for three or four days at a time, and also participating in our commission meetings a couple of times a year.

Justice committee  The judges are superior court judges. In North Carolina, those are our felony trial court judges. They can come from anywhere in the state; they just can't have had anything to do with the original case. They can't have been involved in the original trial, plea or any post-conviction work on the case.

Justice committee  We've had a couple of instances when the prosecution has agreed that the person is innocent and joined with the defence in asking the three-judge panel for the relief. That allows the convicted person to go ahead and receive the compensation from the state, if they go down that route.

Justice committee  I don't have it in front of me, but I could look it up. It's on our website, so I could quickly look it up and tell you. If you give me half a second, I can tell you.

Justice committee  I think in North Carolina it was a balance of a policy decision that they wanted to limit the scope to factual innocence claims, and in order for this process to work in North Carolina, it needed to be limited in that manner. I can't really provide an opinion as to what Canada should do or what standard you all should put into place.

Justice committee  That's correct.