Motor Vehicles

May an Officer Run a Motorist’s Criminal Record During a Traffic Stop?

An officer who stops a motorist for a traffic infraction may run a computer check on the driver’s license and may check for outstanding warrants. The results of these checks may determine how the officer proceeds. For example, if a check reveals that the driver’s license is revoked, the officer may charge the driver with DWLR and may direct the driver that he or she cannot drive the vehicle away from the location of the stop.

May an officer also check a motorist’s criminal record? Such historical information is less likely to dictate the officer’s course of action. But knowing whether a motorist has a record of violent crimes may help an officer determine how cautious he or she must be while completing the stop. This post discusses whether an officer may take time to run a motorist’s criminal record, and summarizes two recent cases on point.

Read more

blank

New Deferral Program for Unauthorized Immigrants Charged with NOL

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a Stanford University study suggesting that granting driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants improves overall traffic safety. That approach is not an option in North Carolina, where unauthorized immigrants have been ineligible to obtain a driver’s license, learner’s permit or identification card since 2006. Recognizing that many unauthorized immigrants drive regardless of whether they are licensed, the district attorney in Orange and Chatham Counties announced this week a new policy for disposing of no operator’s license charges against such drivers, provided they meet certain conditions.

Read more

Status of North Carolina Court of Appeals Cases Before the North Carolina Supreme Court on the Scope of a Traffic Stop under Rodriguez v. United States

In Rodriguez v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 1609 (2015), the United States Supreme Court significantly limited the scope of a traffic stop. It is almost exactly two years since the ruling, and appellate court opinions throughout the country are still proliferating. And so have our faculty’s blog posts: Jeff Welty has written relevant posts here, here, here, here, and here, Alyson Grine here and here, Shea Denning here, Phil Dixon here, and my posts are here, here, and here. This post summarizes Rodriguez and three North Carolina Court of Appeals rulings that are currently before the North Carolina Supreme Court.

Read more

blank

Study Suggests that Licensing Unauthorized Immigrants Improves Traffic Safety

Researchers at Stanford University recently published a study showing that a 2013 California law allowing unauthorized immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses led to a significant reduction in hit and run accidents and did not increase the rate of traffic accidents and fatalities. The study’s authors said this latter finding “suggests there is no empirical support for the claim that unauthorized immigrants are less cautious drivers or generally more likely to cause accidents.” Instead, the findings suggest that “providing driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants led to improved traffic safety” and to “significant positive externalities for the communities in which they live.” What significance might this finding have for policymakers in North Carolina?

Read more

When Does a Seizure Occur When an Officer’s Vehicle Displays Emergency Lights That Directs a Vehicle to Stop?

Jeff Welty wrote a post in 2010 on when a seizure occurs after an officer operates emergency lights to order a driver to stop his or her vehicle. This post updates his post by summarizing the relatively recent North Carolina Court of Appeals case of State v. Mangum, ___ N.C. App. ___, 795 S.E.2d 106 (Dec. 6, 2016), review denied, ___ N.C. ___, 2017 WL 1086917 (March 16, 2017), which ruled on this issue and provides a useful summary of the case law in North Carolina and other jurisdictions.

Read more

blank

How DWIs Are Actually Sentenced

This blog is full of posts about the laws governing sentencing for misdemeanor DWI. Until now, however, I haven’t written much about how DWIs are actually sentenced. That’s because I didn’t know. While the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission (“Sentencing Commission”) annually publishes a statistical report on the sentencing of felonies and misdemeanors, that report doesn’t include information about DWI sentences, which are governed by G.S. 20-179 rather than the Structured Sentencing Act. Thanks to the Sentencing Commission’s recent focus on DWI sentencing, however, I now have statistics about how DWIs are sentenced in courtrooms across North Carolina. And I think you’ll be interested in what they show.

Read more

blank

Harmless Error and Jury Unanimity in DWI Cases

Shortly after I published last week’s post on State v. Babich, an astute reader asked about the court’s harmless error analysis. How, he inquired, could the improper admission of expert testimony that the defendant had an alcohol concentration of 0.08 be harmless error? Did the jury’s verdict indicate that it found the defendant guilty only under the “under the influence” prong of impairment rather than under the “alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more” prong? To answer these questions, I had to dig into the record on appeal and provide a bit of background on the requirement for jury unanimity in DWI cases. I thought others might be interested in my response.

Read more

blank

The Light Just Turned Yellow for Retrograde Extrapolation

I wrote in September 2015 that the court of appeals’ view of the admissibility of retrograde extrapolation under Daubert did not look much different from its take on the admissibility of that evidence under old Rule 702.  As of yesterday, it does. The court of appeals in State v. Babich, __ N.C. App. __ (2017), changed the green light for retrograde extrapolation testimony in DWI cases to yellow.

Read more

May 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 and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment” or it is “reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle.” Gant involved an arrest for driving with a suspended license, and the Court concluded that was “an offense for which police could not expect to find evidence in the passenger compartment” of the arrestee’s car.

But what about DWI? If an officer arrests a driver for DWI and secures the driver in the officer’s cruiser, may the officer search the driver’s vehicle because it is reasonable to believe that evidence of impaired driving will be found in the vehicle? Yes, at least on the facts before it, ruled the Court of Appeals of North Carolina in State v. Martinez, __ N.C. App. __, 795 S.E.2d 386 (2016). This post summarizes Martinez and considers searches incident to DWI arrests more broadly.

Read more