Providing Notice of Implied Consent Rights to a Deaf Defendant

Several earlier posts address the requirement that a defendant be notified of statutory rights related to implied consent testing before being requested to submit to a test of his breath, blood or other bodily fluid.  Posts here and here address whether notification of those rights must be provided in language that the defendant understands.  A related issue is the manner in which a chemical analyst must inform a deaf defendant of implied consent rights. This analysis begins with G.S. 8B-2(d), which provides: If a deaf person is arrested for an alleged violation of criminal law of the State, including a local ordinance, the arresting officer shall immediately procure a qualified interpreter from the appropriate court for any interrogation, warning, notification of rights, arraignment, bail hearing or other preliminary proceeding, but no arrestee otherwise eligible for release on bail under Article 26 of Chapter 15A of the General Statutes shall be held in custody pending the arrival of an interpreter. No answer, statement or admission taken from the deaf person without a qualified interpreter present and functioning is admissible in court for any purpose. A “deaf person” is defined in G.S. 8B-1(2) as “a person whose hearing impairment is so significant that the individual is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification.” This blog post likewise uses the term deaf rather than the term hearing impaired to refer to people whose hearing is limited to this extent. There are no North Carolina cases addressing whether an interpreter must [...]