Whether a suspect refused to submit to a breath test is a hotly contested issue in many impaired driving cases. That determination is critical to two proceedings: the administrative proceeding to determine whether the person’s license will be revoked as a result of the alleged refusal and the criminal trial at which a refusal may be considered as evidence of the defendant’s guilt. Refusal isn’t always easy to discern. Some defendants are injured in the incident leading to their arrest. Some have pre-existing medical conditions that may affect their breathing. Some are confused or disoriented. Some are grossly impaired. Breath-test operators make the initial judgment as to whether a person has deliberately refused testing. Their determinations later may be reviewed by DMV hearing officers conducting license-revocation hearings, by superior courts reviewing revocation orders, and by trial courts at the district and superior level to determine whether evidence of a refusal is admissible at trial and, in superior court, how to instruct juries to consider such refusals. Sometimes the doctrine of collateral estoppel bars a court or DMV in a subsequent proceeding from reconsidering another court’s ruling on the refusal issue. In many circumstances, however, reconsideration of the issue is permissible. Prior ruling bars reconsideration. When a superior court determines, pursuant to an appeal under G.S. 20-16.2(e) from a DMV-issued refusal revocation, that a defendant did not willfully refuse a chemical analysis, the issue of refusal may not later be relitigated in the defendant’s criminal trial. See State v. Summers, 351 N.C. [...]
Faculty Coordinators
