North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Shea Denning summarized S.L. 2011-191, Laura’s Law, in a prior post. To recap, the law adds a new punishment level for impaired driving sentencing, Aggravated Level One (hereinafter Level A1), […]

In yesterday’s post, Jeff mentioned Laura’s Law, which increases the maximum punishment for impaired driving.  Today’s post discusses those provisions in more detail. S.L. 2011-191, dubbed Laura’s Law in recognition […]

On June 23rd, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bullcoming v. New Mexico. As anticipated, the case turned out to be a straightforward application of Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. __, […]

Grossly aggravating or just grossly confusing?  When is a DWI defendant driving while revoked for an impaired driving revocation? Several earlier posts (here , here and here) have discussed sentencing […]

G.S. 20-141.4 sets forth six offenses based upon the unlawful killing or injuring of another during the commission of a motor vehicle offense.  All but one of these death or […]

The first post in this series discussed State v. Taylor. This one recounts the what not to do lessons from last week’s court of appeals’ decision in State v. Petty […]

If I were to compile guidance for law enforcement officers and judges on “what not to do” in an impaired driving case, I’d be sure to include excerpts from two […]

Reckless driving is among the most commonly charged, and most broadly defined, motor vehicle offenses. Three types of reckless driving, all Class 2 misdemeanors, are defined in G.S. 20-140. First, […]

I wrote a paper about motor vehicle checkpoints last year. It’s available here. Once in a while, I get asked about so-called ruse checkpoints, a subject that I didn’t address […]

The usual way for the State to establish that a person drove while impaired under the per se prong of G.S. 20-138.1 is to introduce the results of a chemical […]