DWI and DUI in Charlotte, North Carolina

If you’ve been pulled over and charged with DUI, DWI for alcohol consumption, or operating a vehicle with illicit substances in your body you still have options. Being charged with § 20 – 179, Driving While Intoxicated, is a life altering event with consequences that will change everything, including your daily routine. A loss of a drivers license can affect you and your family by inhibiting your ability to drive to work, school, and even run errands.

If you are facing a DUI-DWI in North Carolina from alcohol or drugs, your license will be suspended for one year. However, this is not the end, even after being convicted for a DUI-DWI, you may be eligible for Limited driving privileges in the courts discretion for “good cause” for essential purposes related to:

• What is a DUI-DWI Breathalyzer and how does it work?
• Levels of DWI-DUI Conviction in North Carolina
• Court ordered treatment or assessment
• Community Service in relation to probation

Of course there are numerous requirements that you may have to meet before obtaining a limited driving privilege. There is no alternative to the convenience of driving your own vehicle. Criminal DWI Lawyers in North Carolina can assist you in exploring your options and the possibility of obtaining a limited driving privilege. Sheehan to talk to a DWI Attorney today, and get on the track to getting your license back.

North Carolina charges impaired driving, not DUI

In North Carolina the offense is impaired driving under G.S. 20-138.1. There is no separate crime called DUI and none called DWI; both are informal names for the same charge, and the statute uses neither. The offense is committed by driving “any vehicle upon any highway, any street, or any public vehicular area within this State” in one of the three conditions the section describes.

It is not confined to the public road system. “Public vehicular area” is defined separately in G.S. 20-4.01 and reaches ground that is not a highway at all, beginning with any area within the State that “is used by the public for vehicular traffic at any time”. The same section defines an “impairing substance” as “alcohol, controlled substance under Chapter 90 of the General Statutes, any other drug or psychoactive substance capable of impairing a person’s physical or mental faculties, or any combination of these substances”. One limit is written into the offense itself: G.S. 20-138.1(e) provides that “the word ‘vehicle’ does not include a horse.”

Three routes to a conviction under G.S. 20-138.1

The State may prove impaired driving in North Carolina in any one of three ways, and it does not have to choose between them. A district court judge may convict on the impairment route alone, with no chemical analysis in evidence at all.

The pleading requirement is correspondingly spare. Under G.S. 20-138.1(c) the prosecution need allege only the time and place of the alleged offense and that the defendant drove a vehicle while subject to an impairing substance, so the charging document rarely reveals which of the three routes the State intends to run.

• Driving “while under the influence of an impairing substance” — the appreciable impairment route, proved by the driving, the officer’s observations, admissions and field tests
• Driving after consuming sufficient alcohol to have “an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more” at any relevant time after the driving
• Driving “with any amount of a Schedule I controlled substance, as listed in G.S. 90-89, or its metabolites in his blood or urine”, which requires no proof of impairment at all

“At any relevant time after the driving” is a defined phrase

The 0.08 route does not require proof of the alcohol concentration at the moment of driving. G.S. 20-4.01 defines a relevant time after the driving as “any time after the driving in which the driver still has in his body alcohol consumed before or during the driving”, which is why a reading taken at the jail an hour later can be used at all.

Two further provisions shape that route. G.S. 20-138.1(b) states that “the fact that a person charged with violating this section is or has been legally entitled to use alcohol or a drug is not a defense to a charge under this section”, so a valid prescription does not answer the charge. G.S. 20-138.1(a1) allows a person who submits to a blood analysis to use that result “in rebuttal as evidence that the person did not have, at a relevant time after driving, an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more”.

The license case runs alongside the criminal case

Two proceedings begin on the night of an impaired driving arrest in North Carolina, and the criminal charge is only one of them. The other is administrative, and it moves faster.

The civil revocation under G.S. 20-16.5 does not follow from the arrest by itself. A judicial official must have a properly executed revocation report before them and must find each of the conditions the section lists: that an officer had reasonable grounds to believe the person committed an offense subject to the implied consent provisions, that the person was charged with it, that the officer and the chemical analyst complied with G.S. 20-16.2 and G.S. 20-139.1, and that the person either “willfully refuses to submit to the chemical analysis” or had a reported alcohol concentration at or above the figure the subsection fixes for that driver. Where those findings are made the revocation is entered at once.

The length of that revocation is conditional rather than fixed. The section provides that “the period of revocation is 30 days, if there are no pending offenses for which the person’s license had been or is revoked under this section”; where that condition is not satisfied, or where the license has not been surrendered, the statute sets the period and its starting point differently and 30 days should not be assumed. The revocation can be contested: a written request for a hearing may be made at the initial appearance or within 10 days of the effective date, and the hearing is held before a magistrate or a district court judge within the short windows the section fixes. Unless the magistrate or judge orders the revocation rescinded, the driver “must pay a fee of one hundred dollars ($100.00) as costs for the action” before the license is returned.

A refusal is dealt with separately again. Where the Division receives a properly executed affidavit that the person wilfully refused, G.S. 20-16.2(d) directs revocation of the license for 12 months, “effective on the thirtieth calendar day after the mailing of the revocation order” unless the person requests a hearing in writing before that date. That revocation stands on its own and is not undone by a dismissal or an acquittal on the criminal charge.

Conviction produces a third revocation, and G.S. 20-19 measures the aggravating history by offense dates rather than by conviction dates. The period is one year for a first conviction. It becomes four years where the driver has another offense involving impaired driving for which they have been convicted, “which offense occurred within three years immediately preceding the date of the offense” now being punished — so a conviction entered last year for a stop six years ago does not trigger it. Revocation is permanent under G.S. 20-19(e) where the person has two or more previous offenses involving impaired driving and the most recent occurred within the five years immediately preceding, and also where the person was sentenced to Aggravated Level One punishment under G.S. 20-179(f3). Neither the four-year nor the permanent revocation is necessarily the end of the matter: the same section allows the Division to restore a license conditionally once part of the period has run, on proof about the person’s record and use of alcohol, with continuous alcohol monitoring as one accepted route to that proof.

What happens between the arrest and the first court date

A person arrested for impaired driving in Mecklenburg County is taken before a magistrate for an initial appearance, and the magistrate holds a power that exists in no ordinary misdemeanor. Under G.S. 15A-534.2, where the judicial official finds by clear and convincing evidence that the impairment of the defendant’s physical or mental faculties presents a danger of physical injury to the defendant or others, or of damage to property, if released, the official must order the person held. The hold is not open-ended. It ends when the faculties are no longer impaired to that extent, or when a sober, responsible adult is willing and able to assume responsibility for the defendant, and in no event may pretrial release be denied under that section for longer than 24 hours.

The vehicle can be taken as well, but only in the two situations the statute defines. Under G.S. 20-28.3 a vehicle is subject to seizure where the driver is charged with an offense involving impaired driving and either the license “was revoked as a result of a prior impaired driving license revocation” or the driver had no valid license and no liability insurance. Where the charging officer has probable cause to believe the vehicle may be subject to forfeiture on that basis, the section directs the officer to seize it and have it impounded — though not where the vehicle has been reported stolen, or is a rental vehicle and the driver was not an authorized driver under the rental agreement.

How the case moves through Mecklenburg County District Court

Impaired driving is a misdemeanor under G.S. 20-138.1(d) and is tried without a jury in district court — in Charlotte, at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse. Chapter 20 then imposes a pretrial motions procedure that applies to implied consent offenses and to no other misdemeanor.

Under G.S. 20-38.6 the defendant “may move to suppress evidence or dismiss charges only prior to trial”, subject to the exceptions the section names, and the judge must “set forth in writing the findings of fact and conclusions of law and preliminarily indicate whether the motion should be granted or denied”. Where that preliminary determination favors the defendant, the judge “shall not enter a final judgment on the motion until after the State has appealed to superior court or has indicated it does not intend to appeal”.

The appeal rights are deliberately asymmetric. G.S. 20-38.7(a) gives the State an appeal to superior court from a preliminary determination granting a motion to suppress or dismiss, and where the facts are disputed the superior court “shall not be bound by the findings of the district court but shall determine the matter de novo”. The defendant, by contrast, “may not appeal a denial of a pretrial motion to suppress or to dismiss but may appeal upon conviction as provided by law”. A district court conviction may then be appealed to superior court for trial de novo before a jury, where the case is heard afresh rather than reviewed.

Continuous alcohol monitoring sits inside the sentencing statute

Sentencing for impaired driving in North Carolina is governed by G.S. 20-179, which requires a sentencing hearing after conviction and sorts cases into six levels — Aggravated Level One, Level One, Level Two, Level Three, Level Four and Level Five. Continuous alcohol monitoring appears at three of them, mandatory in one place and permissive in the others.

For Aggravated Level One it is not a choice. A defendant sentenced under G.S. 20-179(f3) is released before the end of the maximum term, supervised, and “shall also be required to abstain from alcohol consumption for the four-month period of supervision as verified by a continuous alcohol monitoring system”. At Level One the statute is permissive: a judge “may reduce the minimum term of imprisonment required to a term of not less than 10 days” where a condition of special probation requires the defendant to abstain and be monitored “for a period of not less than 120 days”. At Level Two the comparable route is abstention “for at least 90 consecutive days” verified by the same technology. In both of the permissive cases the reduction is something the court may order on the facts before it, not something a defendant becomes entitled to by volunteering for monitoring.

The other impaired driving offenses in Chapter 20

Impaired driving under G.S. 20-138.1 is the general offense, but North Carolina has several related charges with their own thresholds and their own consequences.

• G.S. 20-138.2, impaired driving in a commercial motor vehicle, which uses an alcohol concentration of “0.04 or more” rather than 0.08
• G.S. 20-138.3, which applies to “a person less than 21 years old” and not only to provisional licensees, committed by driving a motor vehicle on a highway or public vehicular area while consuming alcohol or at any time while the driver has remaining in the body any alcohol or controlled substance previously consumed, unless the controlled substance was lawfully obtained and taken in therapeutically appropriate amounts; a Class 2 misdemeanor
• G.S. 20-138.5, habitual impaired driving, charged where the person drives while impaired and has been convicted of three or more offenses involving impaired driving “within 10 years of the date of this offense”; a Class F felony carrying “a minimum active term of not less than 12 months of imprisonment, which shall not be suspended”, and permanent revocation of the license
• G.S. 20-141.4, felony death by vehicle and felony serious injury by vehicle, separate felonies where the driving was impaired, together with the aggravated and repeat versions of those offenses
• G.S. 20-28, driving while license revoked, charged under subsection (a1) in its own right where the revocation was an impaired driving revocation

Restoration, limited privileges and ignition interlock

Serving the revocation period is not by itself enough to get a North Carolina license back after an impaired driving conviction. G.S. 20-17.6 provides that the Division must receive a certificate of completion for a person subject to that section before it can restore the license, and the certificate follows a substance abuse assessment and then, depending on what the assessment recommends, either an alcohol and drug education traffic school or a substance abuse treatment program. Until the certificate arrives the revocation continues, even where the original period has run.

During the revocation a limited driving privilege may be available under G.S. 20-179.3, but it is granted by the court on application rather than issued as of right, and the statute confines who may ask. Eligibility turns on the license the person held at the time of the offense, on their record of prior impaired driving convictions, on the punishment level imposed, on the absence of any later impaired driving conviction or unresolved charge, and on the person having “obtained and filed with the court a substance abuse assessment”. The privilege was long confined to defendants punished at Level Three, Four or Five; for privileges issued on or after 1 December 2024 the statute also reaches a defined group of Level Two defendants, and a privilege issued to that group must carry an ignition interlock restriction.

Interlock reaches a limited driving privilege through two different doors, and only one of them is mandatory. Under G.S. 20-179.3(g3) a judge may include an interlock restriction in a limited driving privilege; under G.S. 20-179.3(g5) the judge must include one where the license was revoked for a conviction under G.S. 20-138.1 and “the person had an alcohol concentration of 0.15 or more”. Interlock on the restored license is a separate requirement under G.S. 20-17.8, which attaches where the alcohol concentration was 0.15 or more, where the person has a conviction of another offense involving impaired driving that occurred within seven years, where the person was sentenced under G.S. 20-179(f3), where the conviction was of habitual impaired driving, and — for licenses revoked on or after 1 December 2024 — where the conviction was of felony death or serious injury by vehicle under G.S. 20-141.4.

What the firm handles in impaired driving matters

Impaired driving work at the firm covers the criminal charge and the license consequences that run beside it, in Mecklenburg County and the surrounding counties.

• Impaired driving charges under G.S. 20-138.1 in Mecklenburg County District Court and on appeal to superior court
• Pretrial motions to suppress and to dismiss under the G.S. 20-38.6 procedure, and State appeals under G.S. 20-38.7
• Civil revocation hearings under G.S. 20-16.5 and wilful refusal hearings under G.S. 20-16.2
• Sentencing hearings under G.S. 20-179, including grossly aggravating, aggravating and mitigating factors
• Habitual impaired driving under G.S. 20-138.5, and impaired driving causing death or serious injury under G.S. 20-141.4
• Commercial license holders charged under G.S. 20-138.2, and drivers under 21 charged under G.S. 20-138.3
• Vehicle seizure and forfeiture under G.S. 20-28.3
• Applications for limited driving privileges under G.S. 20-179.3, restoration under G.S. 20-17.6 and interlock conditions under G.S. 20-17.8

Common questions

Questions people ask

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Written for North Carolina law and reviewed by David P. Sheehan, attorney, Charlotte. General information, not legal advice — see the disclaimer.