Two recent North Carolina Court of Appeals opinions help delineate when an officer has probable cause to believe a driver is driving while impaired. In each case, the court of appeals reversed the trial court’s determination that the officer lacked probable cause. State v. Parisi, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ (2018). This case has been to the court of appeals before. But take heart, readers, I am not going to review its criminal history in this post except to say that the court of appeals granted certiorari review to consider whether the evidence gathered following Parisi’s arrest on impaired driving charges was admissible. Parisi was stopped at a checkpoint. The officer saw “an open box of alcoholic beverage[]” on the passenger floorboard, but did not see any open individual containers. Parisi, who was driving, had glassy, watery eyes and smelled of alcohol. He told the officer he had consumed three beers earlier in the evening. The officer administered three field sobriety tests: a horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) test, the walk and turn test and the one leg stand test. The defendant’s performance on each test indicated impairment, and the officer arrested Parisi for driving while impaired. Both the district court and the superior court (reviewing the district court’s preliminary ruling) determined that Parisi’s arrest was not supported by probable cause. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that the odor of alcohol, the admission of drinking, and multiple indicators of impairment on field sobriety tests were sufficient to establish probable [...]
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