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. We have the ability to depose witnesses under civil procedure. If someone doesn't want to comply with the deposition, we can certainly go and do a motion for contempt under civil procedure, or we could use a material witness order under criminal procedure. We are able to jump between those pieces. We can subpoena witnesses. Those are some of the tools in the tool box.
When the commission presents a case to our commissioners, that is me as director presenting that to the commissioners. It's a non-adversarial hearing. The rules of evidence do not apply. We're presenting all relevant evidence. We're not taking a side on that. It's just not adversarial. We are just really trying to give the commissioners all of the evidence.
At the three-judge panel, that is kind of a de novo hearing. It's a new hearing. The parties are presenting the evidence. They can agree to have some of the materials from the commission's hearing presented. Until this summer, it was unclear whether the rules of evidence applied, and most three-judge panels applied them loosely.
This summer a statute was passed that the rules of evidence do apply. That's a new law that just went into effect this summer. That's an adversarial proceeding. The burden is on the claimant, the convicted person, to prove by clear and convincing evidence that he or she is innocent. It's a reverse burden from a normal criminal proceeding. It's lower than the burden of proof in a criminal trial. Normally you have the beyond a reasonable doubt. This is just below that. This is the clear and convincing, which is somewhat above the civil standard, the preponderance of the evidence standard.