You Get What You Get and You Don’t Throw a Fit
Shea Denning
My daughter is awfully fond of this expression (when applied to one of her brothers, of course). Turns out it also is apropos for this week’s court of appeals decision […]
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September 18, 2014
My daughter is awfully fond of this expression (when applied to one of her brothers, of course). Turns out it also is apropos for this week’s court of appeals decision […]
Read post "You Get What You Get and You Don’t Throw a Fit"September 16, 2014
Portable breath tests don’t go very far anymore in proving whether a suspect is impaired from alcohol. That’s because the legislature amended G.S. 20-16.3(d) in 2006 to provide that the […]
Read post "The Old Portable Breath Test Ain’t What She Used to Be"August 19, 2014
[Author’s note: State v. Townsend was withdrawn and replaced by a subsequent opinion, available here. The portion of the opinion discussed below was unchanged by the subsequent opinion.] No one gets […]
Read post "Court of Appeals in State v. Townsend Beefs Up Prejudice Required for Relief under Knoll"August 12, 2014
The General Assembly just made it a whole lot easier to determine whether a defendant imprisoned for a misdemeanor DWI conviction will serve his or her sentence in jail or […]
Read post "Convicted of DWI? Go Directly to Jail."July 21, 2014
State v. Granger, decided last week, is the latest case in which the North Carolina Court of Appeals has considered, in light of Missouri v. McNeely, __ U.S. __, 133 […]
Read post "State v. Granger Adds to State’s Missouri v. McNeely Jurisprudence"July 1, 2014
With the amendment of Rule 702 of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence in 2011, North Carolina became a Daubert state. That change means that trial judges in this state, […]
Read post "Daubert and Expert Testimony of Impairment"June 30, 2014
To prove that a person drove a vehicle while under the influence of an impairing substance in violation of G.S. 20-138.1(a)(3), the State must establish that the defendant was impaired […]
Read post "Drugged Driving and Jury Instructions"May 14, 2014
The General Assembly convened earlier today for its short session. While lawmakers’ primary focus doubtless will be the state budget, the legislature may again consider ways to address the persistent […]
Read post "Preventing Impaired Driving"May 7, 2014
The most serious level of misdemeanor DWI is Aggravated Level One, which I generally refer to as Level A1. A defendant convicted of driving while impaired is subject to sentencing […]
Read post "Top 3 Questions About Level A1 DWI Sentences"April 24, 2014
Courts across the country continue to wrestle with whether and how the Supreme Court’s opinion in Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1552 (2013), affects the lawfulness […]
Read post "Maybe Implied Consent is Real After All"