Driving While Impaired is a misdemeanor in North Carolina. It has its own sentencing scheme and Structured Sentencing does not apply. The punishments for DWI in North Carolina are laid out in N.C.G.S. § 20-179. There are six different levels of DWI in North Carolina, ranging from Level 5 (lowest) to A1 (highest). A defendant’s level depends upon the existence of and weight assigned to certain statutorily defined aggravating, grossly aggravating, […]
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What are the elements of DWI?
“Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.” Do you know what I’m talking about? (For all the millennials out there who are too young to remember that jingle: those are the ingredients for a McDonald’s Big Mac). Let me ask you this: if you have all of those ingredients, but you don’t have any special sauce…do you have a Big Mac? I […]
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From July 10 to July 14, I was fortunate to have an opportunity to participate in the Indigent Defense Services and UNC School of Government’s Defender Trial School. The program is in a “bring your own case” format; with plenary sessions where we learned general trial practice techniques as well as small group workshops where we each applied those lessons to our own individual cases. Overall the program was excellent. […]
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