The North Carolina Supreme Court held last week in State v. Diaz-Tomas, ___ N.C. ___, 2022-NCSC-115 (November 4, 2022), that neither a criminal defendant nor the court has the right to compel a district attorney to reinstate criminal charges that were dismissed with leave pursuant to G.S. 15A-932 due to the defendant’s failure to appear. The case arose in Wake County, where the district attorney’s office reportedly would reinstate misdemeanor charges dismissed with leave under G.S. 15A-932 only if the defendant agreed to plead guilty and to waive his or her right to appeal to superior court for trial de novo. As a result, Diaz-Tomas’s only option for ending the indefinite license revocation that was imposed for his failure to appear is to plead guilty to the driving while impaired charges that were dismissed with leave. This post discusses the state supreme court’s analysis and considers how it might apply in other circumstances.
UNC School of Government
Knapp-Sanders Building
Campus Box 3330 UNC - Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3330
T: 919.966.5381 | F: 919.962.0654 © 2023 Copyright,
North Carolina Criminal Law
at the School of Government with the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
at the School of Government with the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill