As part of its ongoing coverage of the John Edwards trial, The News and Observer reported today that Edwards’ lawyer cross-examined former Edwards aide Andrew Young by reading from pages of Young’s memoir “The Politician.” I’m guessing that Young’s recounting of his arrest for impaired driving in Chapter 8 of the book, fittingly titled “Men Behaving Very Badly,” wasn’t the focus of the inquiry. Nevertheless, I thought Young’s statement that “[t]he practical problems that befall anyone stupid enough to drive under the influence in North Carolina are more than enough to teach an important lesson,” and that, among those problems is that “you automatically lose your driver’s license,” which Young said “rendered [him] unable to work,” would provide a catchy introduction to a blog post about license revocations and limited privileges for impaired driving. (Andrew Young, The Politician 172 (2010)). The “automatic” revocation to which Young refers likely was a combination of two revocations since Young reports that “[p]anicked, I refused to take a Breathalyzer test.” Id. First, a refusal to be tested would have triggered the immediate civil revocation of Young’s license at his initial appearance under G.S. 20-16.5. You can read more about those revocations, commonly referred to as CVRs, here and here. In addition to the immediate CVR, which typically endures for at least thirty days, the driver’s license of a person who willfully refuses testing is subject to a 12-month revocation imposed by DMV. See G.S. 20-16.2(d). You can read more about willful refusal revocations here. While [...]
Faculty Coordinators
