Hit and run is a term used to describe several felony and misdemeanor offenses set forth in G.S. 20-166, a statute in which neither the term “hit” nor “run” appears. G.S. 20-166 criminalizes a driver’s failure to stop at the scene of a crash in which the vehicle he or she is driving is involved, a driver’s failure to remain at the scene of such a crash, and a driver’s facilitating of the premature removal of his or her vehicle from the scene. The last type of violation was created in 2005 in response to the death of twenty-seven-year-old Stephen Gates. In the early morning hours of October 4, 2003, Gates, a reporter for the Tar Heel Sports Network, was changing a tire on his car on the side of Interstate 40 near Hillsborough, NC, when he was struck by Cadillac Escalade driven by Emily Caveness. See Benjamin Niolet, Jury Rejects Hit and Run, The News & Observer, Nov. 13, 2004 (as modified October 22, 2005) (The facts set forth in this post relating to the accident in which Jones was killed and the ensuing criminal prosecutions are drawn from Niolet’s article.). The door to Gates’ car was ripped off by the impact, and Gates was killed. Caveness stopped her vehicle some distance from the crash. Rabah Samera, who had been asleep in the front passenger seat until the crash, got out of the car and saw that the front of the Escalade was mangled. Samera got into the driver’s seat [...]
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