Court of Appeals Holds that CDL Disqualification Bars DWI Prosecution

I’m not buying a lottery ticket this week. The court of appeals’ opinion in State v. McKenzie, published yesterday, casts serious doubt on my wagering skills. And if my wagers are this suspect when I make an educated guess, I don’t want take on the odds in a game of chance. McKenzie holds, over a dissent, that the one-year disqualification of a defendant’s commercial driver’s license (CDL) based on the issuance of a civil license revocation for impaired driving is so punitive that it amounts to criminal punishment. Therefore, the majority concludes that prosecution for impaired driving after such a CDL disqualification violates double jeopardy. What does this have to do with my ability to predict outcomes? I forecast a different analysis in this earlier post. McKenzie, a commercial truck driver for a logging company, was arrested in 2010 for impaired driving in a non-commercial vehicle. At McKenzie’s initial appearance, the magistrate issued a 30-day civil license revocation (CVR) based upon the results of McKenzie’s breath test, which reported an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or higher. See G.S. 20-16.5. Because McKenzie had a CDL, the issuance of the CVR disqualified him from driving a commercial motor vehicle for one year. See G.S. 20-17.4(a)(7). McKenzie lost his job as a truck driver after his disqualification. He worked for a while for his same employer as a logger, at half the pay. McKenzie was fired a few months after he moved into this new role because the company’s logging crews were overstaffed. McKenzie [...]