A UNC School of Government Blog
Jeff wrote last week about the court costs associated with traffic infractions, which are significant, even for minor traffic offenses. As he mentioned, these costs are not the only financial burden imposed upon drivers found responsible for traffic infractions or convicted of traffic offenses. Drivers who seek representation in such proceedings also incur attorney’s fees. … Read more
Court costs support many different programs and purposes. The principal statute concerning court costs in criminal cases is G.S. 7A-304. (Under G.S. 15A-1118, these costs also apply to infraction cases.) G.S. 7A-304 establishes various court costs for the support of “courtroom(s) and related judicial facilities,” “courthouse phone systems,” “retirement and insurance benefits [for] . . … Read more
Several earlier posts (here, here and here) address the availability of a limited driving privilege for a person whose driver’s license is revoked upon conviction of impaired driving. Such a privilege allows a person to lawfully drive—for limited purposes at limited times—during the period of the revocation. I wrote here about DMV’s authority to revoke a … Read more
Last August, the court of appeals in State v. Smith, ___ N.C. App. ___, 729 S.E.2d 120, temp. stay granted, __ N.C. __, 731 S.E.2d 179 (mem.) (2012), decided an issue of first-impression related to a drug dog alert and the reasonableness of an ensuing Fourth Amendment search. Since we haven’t yet blogged about Smith, … Read more
Y’all may be tired of reading about sentencing in impaired driving cases, particularly if you’ve read this entire bulletin. But I’m hoping the reader-market will bear a few more sentencing-related posts since I’ve not tired of writing about the subject. Recently, in a session I taught about sentencing under G.S. 20-179, a lively discussion broke … Read more
Jeff wrote earlier this week about the court of appeals’ opinion in State v. Osterhoudt (August 21, 2012). Jeff’s post dealt with the court’s substantive analysis of whether the police officer who stopped the defendant had the reasonable, articulable suspicion required to render the stop lawful under the Fourth Amendment. I want to focus on … Read more
A good rule of thumb is that most interesting impaired driving appeals come from Pitt County. Whether that is related to ECU’s ranking as a top five “party school,” I don’t know. In any event, today’s batch of opinions from the court of appeals includes another intriguing Pitt County DWI, State v. Osterhoudt. The facts … Read more
I’ve heard folks say that there is criminal law . . . and then there is impaired driving law. What I think they mean is that while impaired driving is, of course, a crime, subject to the rules of criminal procedure and constitutional provisions that apply generally to the investigation, charging, trial, conviction and sentencing … Read more
Can an officer’s visual estimate of a vehicle’s speed, uncorroborated by radar, pacing, or other techniques, support a speeding stop? The Fourth Circuit has been whipsawing back and forth on that question recently. First, in United States v. Sowards, __ F.3d __, 2012 WL 2386605 (4th Cir. June 26, 2012), a case I discussed here, … Read more