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 prison. Defendants sentenced to imprisonment for misdemeanor impaired driving on or after January 1, 2015 will spend that time in a local confinement facility—a jail—rather than in prison, regardless of the length of the sentence. Good riddance? We are policy-neutral here at the School of Government, but I’ll own my aversion to laws that I can’t explain. And, honestly, I cringe every time I have to explain the current rule. The starting point is G.S. 20-176(c1) (repealed by S.L. 2014-100 (S 744)), which provides: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person convicted of a misdemeanor for the violation of any provision of this Chapter except G.S. 20-28(a) and (b), G.S. 20-141(j), G.S. 20-141.3(b) and (c), G.S. 20-141.4, or a second or subsequent conviction of G.S. 20-138.1 shall be imprisoned in the State prison system unless the person previously has been imprisoned in a local confinement facility, as defined by G.S. 153A-217(5), for a violation of this Chapter. Thus, the rule generally applicable to sentences for all Chapter 20 offenses (including DWI) is that terms of imprisonment for active sentences, regardless of length, are served in local confinement facilities rather than in the custody of the Division of Adult Correction (DAC). This rule does not apply to a defendant who previously has been imprisoned in a local confinement facility for a Chapter 20 offense. The general rule [...]
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