State v. Rouse and Circumstantial Evidence of Driving

To prove impaired driving, the State must establish that the defendant drove a vehicle while impaired. A person drives when he or she is “actual physical control of a vehicle which is in motion or which has the engine running.” G.S. 20-4.01(25). Sometimes the State may establish driving through direct evidence. For example, a law enforcement officer or another witness may observe the defendant driving and may testify to that fact. In other cases, a law enforcement officer may encounter the person the officer believes was driving after the driving has concluded, perhaps in or near the car or at some other location. In those cases, the State may seek to establish driving based on circumstantial evidence. The Court of Appeals' recent opinion in State v. Rouse, 2022-NCCOA-496, __ N.C. App. ___ (July 19, 2022), considers when such circumstantial evidence is sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss. State v. Rouse. Charles Hewett was in the back yard of his mother’s house in Bolivia, NC when he heard a crash. He ran to the front yard and saw that a pickup truck had crashed nose first into a ditch alongside the road. A man with a bleeding nose was sitting in the driver’s seat. Hewett talked to the man who asked Hewett to help him pull the truck out of the ditch. Hewett declined. Someone called 911. The man then left the scene on foot, walking in a “’wobbly’” manner and eventually appearing to head down a dirt road into the [...]