Yesterday was opinion day at the court of appeals. And while it wasn’t officially designated as DWI opinion day, several of yesterday’s opinions resolve significant and recurring issues in DWI litigation. Today’s post will cover the highlights. Habitual DWI. G.S. 20-138.5 makes it a felony for a person who has been convicted of three or more offenses involving impaired driving within ten years of the date of the latest offense to drive while impaired. Unlike the statute defining habitual felon status, which requires that each qualifying predicate felony be committed after the person has been convicted of the earlier felony, G.S. 20-138.5 does not require that the prior felonies occur in any particular sequence. State v. Mayo. Glenn Mayo, Jr. was indicted for habitual impaired driving in December 2015, following his arrest a month earlier for impaired driving. The State alleged that Mayo had three prior convictions for offenses involving impaired driving that occurred within ten years of the November 2015 DWI: a DWI conviction on September 30, 2015 in Johnston County Superior Court, and two DWI convictions on December 20, 2012 in Wake County District Court. Mayo argued on appeal that the habitual DWI indictment was invalid because two of the underlying convictions were on the same court date. He alleged that G.S. 20-138.5 was ambiguous because it did not address how to treat multiple convictions from the same date and that it should thus be construed in a similar manner to the habitual felon statute. The court of appeals [...]
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