Credit for Inpatient Treatment in Impaired Driving Cases

One of the purposes for sentencing for impaired driving, like sentencing generally, is to rehabilitate offenders so that they may be restored to the community as lawful citizens.  Cf. G.S. 15A-1340.12.  The rehabilitative aims of the sentencing scheme for impaired driving are evident in the requirement that offenders obtain substance abuse assessment at treatment as a condition of probation (discussed here) and also in the provisions of G.S. 20-179(k1) that allow a court to order that a defendant serve a term of special probation as an inpatient at a state-operated or licensed facility for the treatment of alcoholism or substance abuse.  The latter provision accords with structured sentencing act provisions that allow a judge to order that a defendant serve a period of special probation at a designated treatment facility.  See G.S. 15A-1351(a).  Unlike its structured sentencing counterpart, G.S. 20-179(k1) explicitly requires the defendant to bear the expense of any treatment unless the trial judge orders that the costs be absorbed by the State. The judge may impose restrictions on the defendant’s ability to leave the premises of the treatment facility and may require that the defendant follow the facility’s rules. G.S. 20-179(k1). G.S. 20-179(k1) also permits a judge to “credit against the active sentence imposed on a defendant the time the defendant was an inpatient at the treatment facility, provided such treatment occurred after the commission of the offense for which the defendant is being sentenced.”  This provision is subject to a few interpretations. One narrow interpretation of  the provision [...]