Amendments to Notice and Demand Provisions for DWI Cases

No legislative session would be complete without amendments to the state’s DWI laws. The 2016 short session upholds this tradition by amending the procedures that govern the admissibility of chemical analyses in impaired driving trials in district and superior court. Background. G.S. 20-139.1(a) provides that evidence of a person’s alcohol concentration or the presence of any other impairing substance in the person’s body as shown by a chemical analysis is admissible at a trial for any implied consent offense. Chemical analysis is a term of art. It means a test “of the breath, blood, or other bodily fluid or substance of a person to determine the person’s alcohol concentration or the presence of an impairing substance” that is “performed in accordance with G.S. 20-139.1.” G.S. 20-4.01(3a). G.S. 20-139.1 requires that breath tests be (1) performed by a person with a DHHS permit on a breath-testing instrument that has been properly maintained, (2) that duplicate sequential breath samples be tested, and (3) that the results from those samples not differ by more than 0.02. Blood or urine withdrawn from a defendant in an implied consent case must be analyzed by an approved laboratory for the results to be admissible under G.S. 20-139.1. Admitting the analysis without the analyst. Two subsections of G.S. 20-139.1 permit the results of a chemical analysis or a chemical analyst’s affidavit to be admitted into evidence without testimony from the analyst. A third permits the introduction of chain of custody statements without their signatories. These provisions often are referred to as notice [...]