A Horse Is a Horse, of Course. But Is It Also a Vehicle?
Horses are vehicles, according to our state court of appeals. In State v. Dellinger, 73 N.C. App. 685 (1985), the court upheld the defendant’s conviction for impaired driving based upon his riding of a...
View ArticleState crime lab backlogs and the right to speedy trial
The state crime lab and other local laboratories perform nearly 10,000 blood toxicology analyses annually, the vast majority of them in impaired driving cases. Unlike breath analysis results, which the...
View ArticleDo Old DWIs Count toward Felony Prior Record Level?
Author’s note: This post has been updated since its initial publication. The original version overlooked G.S. 15A-1340.11(7), a statute that is clearly relevant to the discussion. Do old (as in,...
View ArticleBeyond Legislative Solutions to Melendez-Diaz
My recent paper (here) on the use of remote testimony in criminal cases involving forensic analysts was written in part because of the flood of interest in legislative solutions to Melendez-Diaz. That...
View ArticleJury Instructions for DWI
Forget all your legal training. Pretend you are a juror in a DWI case. Facts. The following facts were established at trial: The defendant was stopped at a checkpoint. The officer smelled alcohol and...
View ArticleSpecial Rules for the Admission of Hospital Medical Records
Rule 45. This rule surprised me. Before I learned about it, I assumed that when a party sought to introduce hospital medical records at trial, a records custodian appeared in court to testify that the...
View ArticleIndefinite Driver’s License Revocations for DWI Convictions
What is the basis for the indefinite license revocation reflected in the driving record entry below? A. A revocation under G.S. 20-24.1 for failure to appear for a motor vehicle offense. B. A...
View ArticleImposing Fees for Forensic Expert Testimony — Is It Constitutional?
Tucked into the 2013 North Carolina budget bill is a provision imposing new court costs for expert witnesses who testify about chemical or forensic analyses at trial. Specifically, the new law (sec....
View ArticleMay Magistrates Be Compelled to Testify about Their Decision-Making Processes?
When a defendant move to dismiss DWI charges based on a violation of his pre-trial release rights, the State’s first response is predictable: Subpoena the magistrate who presided over the defendant’s...
View ArticleSupreme Court Rules that Anonymous Tip Provides Reasonable Suspicion of...
The Supreme Court just decided a case that significantly changes North Carolina law regarding whether a traffic stop can be made based on an anonymous 911 call alleging bad driving. The case is...
View ArticleCan 24/7 Sobriety Programs Fix the DWI Problem?
The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece last Friday that, according to the headline, offered “A Simple Fix For Drunken Driving.” I was intrigued because, frankly, I didn’t think there was...
View ArticleWarrant Required for Testing of Unconscious DWI Suspect
The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments this morning in three cases involving the chemical testing of impaired drivers. The question before the court in each case is whether, in the...
View ArticlePodcast Update: Episode 4 Now Available
The penultimate episode of the inaugural season of Beyond the Bench is now available! The first half of the episode was produced by Shea, and explores the penalties associated with impaired driving and...
View ArticleSentencing Whiteboard: Active Sentences for Aggravated Level One DWI
Today’s post is a return to the Sentencing Whiteboard, this time to explain active sentences for aggravated level one DWI. As Shea and I have discussed in earlier posts (here, here, and here, among...
View ArticleMay an Officer Search a Vehicle Incident to an Arrest for DWI?
In Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that an officer may “search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only when the arrestee is unsecured...
View ArticleGot Probable Cause for Impaired Driving?
Two recent North Carolina Court of Appeals opinions help delineate when an officer has probable cause to believe a driver is driving while impaired. In each case, the court of appeals reversed the...
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Commission Recommends Changes to DWI Laws and Correctional Policies
The North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission released last November a report recommending several changes to the state’s impaired driving laws and correctional policies. The report...
View ArticleDWI Update: May 2020 Edition
My colleagues and I usually spend the waning weeks of May slogging through months of appellate opinions, determining which cases merit discussion at upcoming summer conferences. This year, of course,...
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