A good rule of thumb is that most interesting impaired driving appeals come from Pitt County. Whether that is related to ECU’s ranking as a top five “party school,” I don’t know. In any event, today’s batch of opinions from the court of appeals includes another intriguing Pitt County DWI, State v. Osterhoudt. The facts of the case are pretty simple: the defendant was driving in Greenville when he turned onto Fifth Street heading west. At the relevant intersection, Fifth Street has three lanes, one eastbound and two westbound. One of the westbound lanes is a “regular” lane and one is a left-turn lane. The defendant made a wide turn onto Fifth Street, initially crossing partway into the left-turn lane, which was separated from the regular lane by a double yellow line, before settling into the regular lane. An officer saw the turn and stopped the defendant, who turned out to be impaired. The officer charged the defendant with DWI and driving left of center. The defendant moved to suppress, arguing that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation and that the stop was therefore unlawful. He prevailed in district court and in superior court, with the superior court judge finding that the defendant’s wide right turn did not cross the “middle halfway point” of Fifth Street and was “normal” driving that did not affect other traffic. The state appealed, and after a discussion of some procedural issues concerning the appeal, the court of appeals reversed. It analyzed the [...]
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