Commission Recommends Changes to DWI Laws and Correctional Policies

The North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission released last November a report recommending several changes to the state’s impaired driving laws and correctional policies. The report marked the culmination of more than three years of study that included examination of DWI sentencing and correctional data as well as consideration of input from law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and providers of substance abuse treatment. The report’s fifteen recommendations address issues ranging from pretrial conditions of release for defendants charged with impaired driving to the place of confinement for defendants serving active sentences. These are the recommendations: 1. Promote a state-funded pretrial continuous alcohol monitoring (CAM) pilot program in smaller counties through the Governor’s Crime Commission and collect data for further analysis. 2. Ask the Chief Justice to direct judicial districts to update their case management plans and continuance policies consistent with the North Carolina Commission on the Administration of Law and Justice’s recommendations to the Administrative Office of the Courts in implementing its case management plan. 3. Simplify the prosecutor’s dismissal and explanation requirements by eliminating S. 20- 138.4(b)(5); combining subsections (2), (3), and (4) of G.S. 20-138.4(b); and deleting the last line of G.S. 20-138.4(a). 4. Study the idea of a lesser included offense for DWI. 5. Enumerate a mitigating factor for use in DWI sentencing if “the defendant has accepted responsibility for the defendant’s criminal conduct at an early stage of the criminal process.” 6. Authorize conditional discharge for certain eligible DWI offenses. 7. Authorize an expunction option for [...]