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We have discussed issues involving allegations of underage drinking and driving on several occasions. Generally, North Carolina law says that underage drinking is prohibited in general. When it comes to driving, a person may be charged with an underage DUI offense based upon any evidence of alcohol in his or her system.

But the existence of the zero tolerance policy for underage drinking and driving does not mean that a person under the age of 21 cannot be accused of driving while impaired charges. The legal limit of 0.08 percent blood alcohol concentration applies to underage drivers as well.

Similarly, if law enforcement believes there is enough evidence of impairment, prosecutors may seek DWI charges based upon the evidence of impairment.

A Greenville, North Carolina teenager is accused of DWI after a car accident was reported Thursday Evening in Lenoir County, North Carolina. Troopers claim that the Greenville teen lost control of the Dodge Challenger he was driving on Rouse Road in Kinston, North Carolina around 7:00 Thursday evening. The car reportedly went through the ditch, struck a tree and crashed into a house.

Nobody was in the home at the time of the wreck. The 18-year-old driver and his 18-year-old passenger form Dover, North Carolina were not injured. Authorities estimate that the accident caused ,000 damage to the home.

The Greenville, North Carolina teen is charged with DWI and reckless driving related to the allegations. It is not clear what evidence led troopers to suspect the young man was impaired at the time of the accident.

Source: WBTW, “NC teen crashes car into house, faces DWI charge, police say,” May 3, 2013  

Greenville DUI Attorney Blog | North Carolina Underage Drinking Lawyer | Pitt County First DUI Law Firm

Passengers in cars may often face charges in North Carolina based upon allegations arising during a traffic stop. We have previously reported stories involving allegations of aiding and abetting charges under our state’s laws.

Drivers and passengers alike involved in a traffic stop may face other types of allegations. Generally, state criminal charges vary from state to state, but passengers can be charged with crimes during a traffic stop–depending upon the circumstances.

A recent celebrity story out of Georgia has made national news involving a passenger who is accused of disorderly conduct. Police claim that Reese Witherspoon acted out as officers investigated her husband for an alleged drunk driving offense. Law enforcement conducted a traffic stop early Friday, and ultimately took Jim Toth and his wife, Reese Witherspoon, into custody on criminal charges.

Authorities claim that Ms. Witherspoon refused to abide by the commands of law enforcement to remain in the car as officers investigated her husband on driving under the influence charges. Media has made much ado about statement’s Ms. Witherspoon made during the traffic stop, including allegations that she asked the officer if he knew her name. Police claim that the actress crossed the line in dealing with law enforcement, apparently by getting out of her vehicle and voicing her opinions during the police investigation.

Ultimately, Ms. Witherspoon was charged with disorderly conduct. Her husband was arrested on suspicion of DUI.

Ms. Witherspoon reportedly has publicly apologized for her alleged performance that night. The husband and wife had enjoyed dinner together prior to the traffic stop. Each will face separate charges in court.

Source: Huffington Post, “Reese Witherspoon Apologizes For Her Behavior: Actress ‘Deeply Embarrassed’ After Arrest,” Jonathan Drew, April 22, 2013

Greenville DUI Attorney Blog | North Carolina Underage Drinking Lawyer | Pitt County First DUI Law Firm

We have reported issues surrounding fake id possession and use in North Carolina. Often, people may think of a fake ID issue being related to underage drinking. However, a 25-year-old tried to hide his true identity from police during a traffic stop recently, according to officers in Sampson County. The man is now facing several drug charges.

Authorities claim that officers had probable cause to search the Pittsboro, North Carolina man and his car when he provided police with a false identity during the traffic stop. It is not clear why officers initiated the original stop. However, law enforcement claims that a variety of controlled substances were discovered during the search.

Police accuse the man of possessing slightly more than three grams of cocaine, 14 grams of marijuana and several different prescription medications. Among the pills seized in the search, authorities say that the man has 14 total units of Xanax, Clonazepam and Oxymorphone. He is now accused of at felony possession of a controlled substance, cocaine possession, several misdemeanor counts of drug possession, driving while revoked and providing police with false information.

The driver was transported to jail, where he was held on ,500 bond.

A traffic stop may often lead to more serious charges if law enforcement finds a reason to expand the scope of the original traffic stop. However, a driver still has constitutional rights and law enforcement is not entitled to expand the scope of an investigation without a legal basis.

Drivers accused of an offense after a traffic stop have the right to challenge not only the allegations, but may also have a basis to challenge the procedures used by law enforcement in gathering information in a specific case.

Source: Sampson Independent, “Fake ID leads to drug arrest,” Sherry Matthews, March 28, 2013

Greenville DUI Attorney Blog | North Carolina Underage Drinking Lawyer | Pitt County First DUI Law Firm

So how ridiculous is this entire "War on Drunk Driving" getting?  Well…..

Man Arrested for Suspected Pot DUI Over Color of His Tongue?

Puyallup, WA.  Feb 26  – Pot may be legal in Washington state, but Kent police recently arrested a Puyallup man for driving under the influence because, he said, he had a green film on his tongue.

Mike Simmons, 31, said Tuesday he was put in jail for 13 hours. Now with towing and lawyer fees, he said he’s out ,000 and he’s not allowed to drive while he’s out on bail.

All for something he said he didn’t do.

“As soon as the officer came to the vehicle, he asked me to stick out my tongue,” said Simmons.

Simmons thought it was an unusual request but he soon found out he was pulled over for suspicion of driving under the influence.

Simmons said the officer told him there was a green film on his tongue. The unidentified police officer apparently felt that is a telltale sign that someone has been smoking marijuana.

Simmons admitted he had smoked pot three days earlier, but says when he was pulled over he was on a lunch break from work and was stone-cold sober.

“There was nothing in the car, so I don’t know what kind of evidence he had based on just a green film on my tongue,” Simmons said.

According to the law that made pot legal in the state, a driver can have no more than 5 nanograms of THC in their blood.

Simmons refused to take give a blood sample without a lawyer present. He said he was then arrested and taken to jail.

Kent police spokesman Pat Lowery couldn’t talk about the case “because it’s an ongoing investigation,” but said a blood sample isn’t required if an officer believes the person is driving under the influence.

“Driving while impaired is still driving while impaired,” Lowery said.

Simmons swears he wasn’t impaired because he didn’t smoke pot that day, and he’s ready to fight the charges.

“I just feel like the system they have is unfair,” said Simmons.

Better not drive if you're going to use Scope!  And by the way, the following are excerpts from an article entitled "What Causes Green Tongue?"….

What causes green tongue most commonly is hairy tongue syndrome. Unlike its name, this doesn't actually refer to hair on a tongue, but a discoloration of it. Healthy tongues are velvety because of the small papillae on the tongue's dorsal surface that shed on a regular basis. However, these papillae sometimes grow without shedding and because of this, they end up looking longer on the tongue and get stained because of bacterial activity or contamination. This then leads to a different color – usually green or black. Nobody really knows why this condition appears, but too much smoking, bad dental health and excessive mouthwash use have been pinpointed…

Another common condition that could bring about green tongue would be oral thrush, a fungal infection that usually hits people with weak immune systems and also seniors. Usually, oral thrush leads to a white tongue, but after using antibiotics or eating, the tongue could turn green… 

A lot of other causes might exist out there for a green tongue, too. For one, it can be related to sore throat and to using antibiotics for a long time. Other things that could bring about a green tongue are smoking, mouthwash overuse and tongue infections. Also, certain toothpastes and mouthwashes might have ingredients or dyes in them that could bring about a green tongue…

Note: no mention of marijuana causing green tongue.
 

DUI BLOG

Falcon Beach RCMP made a drug bust on a residence in that area on Friday.
Manitoba stories

A North Carolina State trooper was arrested in Hendersonville Monday morning for allegedly driving drunk while on duty. The Highway Patrol says that the trooper met with a sergeant in the parking lot outside Sam’s in Hendersonville Monday morning.

The trooper reportedly was in his squad as he talked with his supervisor, a sergeant with the Highway Patrol. During the encounter, the sergeant claims that the 37-year-old smelled of alcohol, had glassy eyes and was slurring his speech during the conversation.

Those types of allegations are common in drunk driving arrest reports in North Carolina. Generally, many people are aware that North Carolina sets the legal limit to drive at 0.08 percent blood alcohol level.

Regardless of a driver’s size, experience, or any other factor individual to the driver, the state presumes impairment at a 0.08 percent or greater BAC level. However, police reports may often include descriptions of an officer’s alleged observations of a driver to support their alleged suspicions and to show alleged indicia of impairment.

The Highway Patrol says that the sergeant suspected that his colleague may have been under the influence as the two spoke in the parking lot. Later, authorities claim that the trooper took a breath test, which registered a 0.08 percent BAC reading.

The trooper has been charged with DWI and is scheduled to appear in court March 21. The North Carolina Highway Patrol says that the trooper resigned from the law enforcement agency after the DWI arrest. The trooper had been with the force for seven years and had been assigned to the Hendersonville office since 2007.

Sources:

• WLOS, “On-Duty Trooper DWI in Patrol Car,” Feb. 6, 2013
• WBTV, “Trooper charged with DWI while on duty, resigns after arrest, troopers say,” Nick Needham, Feb. 7, 2013

Greenville DUI Attorney Blog | North Carolina Underage Drinking Lawyer | Pitt County First DUI Law Firm

Law enforcement in Clinton, North Carolina was called to an establishment just before 2:00 in the morning to break up an alleged bar fight over the weekend. Responding officers say that the staff apparently was able to get the fight under control before police arrived.

However, after breaking up the fight, staff claims that three women refused to leave the premises. There is no information in a recent news story that the three women were involved in the original alleged fight, but all three now face criminal charges.

The three women, all sisters, reported refused to leave, and officers stepped in after arriving at the scene. Police claim that the youngest of the sisters, an 18-year-old woman, pushed a police detective on the shoulder. The youngest sister was taken into custody on suspicion of assault on a government official.

The 18-year-old was hauled out to a police cruiser for transport to the Detention Center. Authorities say that the young woman was wearing a wrist band, indicating that she was old enough to enter the establishment, which serves alcohol. While in the patrol car, the officer transporting the 18-year-old claims that the young woman smelled of alcohol. Police say that she submitted to a breath test, which registered 0.10 percent blood alcohol concentration.

The young woman is facing several charges related to the allegations. She is accused of the assault charge, as well as trespassing and underage drinking. She was booked into jail on ,500 bond. Her sisters, who are 23- and 26-years-old, each were arrested on suspicion of trespassing and given bond of 0 each.

Source: Sampson Independent, “Sisters charged after refusing to leave Wingz,” Sherry Matthews, Dec. 3, 2012

Greenville DUI Attorney Blog | North Carolina Underage Drinking Lawyer | Pitt County First DUI Law Firm

Law enforcement in Greensboro, North Carolina says a woman fled the scene during a traffic stop early Friday morning. Officers say the woman was pulled over for an alleged expired license tag. During the traffic stop, the police officer says that the woman did not have a license or other identification and he returned to his patrol car to look up the woman’s identity on the computer. That is when she is accused of bolting.

The officer says the woman took a detour from the road and drove through several front yards during the roughly half-mile police chase. The woman reportedly struck a traffic sign along the way, before stopping her vehicle in the front yard of a home. The 25-year-old Jamestown, North Carolina woman is accused of stumbling from the vehicle. She was arrested in the yard shortly after 2:00 Friday morning.

The woman was booked into the Guilford County Detention Center after her arrest. Police say that she had two outstanding warrants on charges of driving while impaired. However, she now faces a new set of North Carolina charges. Police believe that she was impaired at the time of the recent alleged police chase.

In addition to the new North Carolina DWI charge, the woman is accused of felony fleeing, driving with a revoked license, resisting arrest and a violation for the alleged expired license tab.

The alleged events all started after law enforcement conducted an allegedly routine traffic stop based upon the claim that the woman had an expired tab. Generally, law enforcement is not allowed to make a traffic stop based upon a mere whim. However, a minor alleged violation of the law, such as allegations of an expired tag, may give police the ability to conduct a lawful traffic stop.

Greenville DWI defense lawyers know that our constitutional rights are worth protecting. A person accused of a crime has the right to challenge DWI allegations, including, at times, whether or not a traffic stop was conducted in compliance with constitutional protections.

Source: WFMY News 2, “Woman Leads Greensboro Police On Short Chase Through Fisher Park,” Nov. 9, 2012

Greenville DUI Attorney Blog | North Carolina Underage Drinking Lawyer | Pitt County First DUI Law Firm

The purpose of "field sobriety tests" (FSTs) is, of course, to determine if a driver is under the influence of alcohol. Rather than let the officer arrest anyone he wants, the tests supposedly provide objective evidence of impairment from alcohol.     

The usual DUI investigation includes the administration of 3 FSTs to the driver.  Commonly, this consists of the 3 "standardized" FSTs (SFSTs) recommended by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: walk-and-turn, one-leg-stand, and horizontal gaze nystagmus (the "eye test").  If some cops aren’t happy with the results, they may administer one or two more tests, hoping that the suspect will finally fail one of them.  

And then again, some cops just ignore the evidence…

Tennessee: Improper to Arrest Someone for Passing DUI Test

Knoxville, TN.  Sept. 5 — A Tennessee motorist who passed six roadside sobriety tests should not have been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), the state Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Friday. The three-judge panel rejected the attempt by prosecutors to overturn a trial court’s finding that David D. Bell should not have been taken into custody on January 12, 2010 after he displayed "excellent" mental acuity after being pulled over by a county sheriff’s deputy.

Bell had made a wrong turn in a construction area, briefly driving on the wrong side of the road — a mistake that a number of other confused drivers had made that day. Sevierville Police Officer Timothy Russell, who had extensive DUI training, arrived on the scene to take over from the deputy. Russell asked Bell to perform a four-finger count; say the alphabet from the letter G to S; identify the year of his fifth, sixth or seventh birthday; perform a one-legged stand while counting to thirty; and do a nine-step walk-and-turn. On the stand, Officer Russell testified that his mental performance was excellent, but that Bell "did not plant and turn as I had instructed him to." So Russell placed Bell under arrest.

Officer Russell admitted he did not follow proper procedure by turning off his flashing blue lights, which is a known source of distraction for the plant-and-turn test. After reviewing dashcam video from that night, the trial judge rejected Officer Russell’s conclusion.

"I honestly think that he did pretty dog-gone good on the field sobriety tests, better than most I’ve seen," Sevier County Circuit Court Judge Rex Henry Ogle observed. "I couldn’t pass them as well as he did."

Judge Ogle found the initial traffic stop legitimate but granted a suppression motion because the arrest went too far. The three-judge appellate panel also reviewed the videotape and sided with the trial judge. The appeals court found ample reason to suspect Bell might have been intoxicated, but the probable cause evaporated after testing.

"We interpret the slightly more colorful comments made by the trial court in its ruling from the bench on the defendant’s suppression motion as a finding, as a factual matter, that the defendant passed all of the field sobriety tests that he was given," Judge John Everett Williams wrote for the three-judge panel. "The state is not required to perform field sobriety tests on an individual prior to arresting him or her for driving under the influence. However, if the state chooses to administer such tests, it may not simply disregard the results if the individual involved performs them successfully. Had the defendant failed any of the field sobriety tests, we have no doubt that the state would have argued that the defendant’s failure provided strong evidence in support of probable cause. We believe that the defendant’s consistent success on a battery of such tests is likewise compelling evidence — in the other direction."

To paraphrase the great Humphrey Bogart film, Treasure of the Sierra Madre…"FSTs? FSTs!  I don’t need no stinkin’ FSTs!"
 

DUI BLOG

A North Carolina woman who was charged July 22 with underage drinking apparently has not yet appeared in court on the alcohol offense. However, the woman has now turned 21-years-old. The underage alcohol offense statutes generally do not provide much legal leeway. Underage alcohol offenses are taken seriously in North Carolina. Any criminal offense filed against a person age 16 or older is brought in adult court.

The woman accused of the underage alcohol offense was released in July after her arrest after she promised to appear in court on the underage drinking offense. She is now, however, facing more serious alcohol related charges on recent allegations. The woman, now 21-years-old, is facing felony hit and run and DWI charges after she was allegedly in an accident with a pedestrian Saturday in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

Police say that a 28-year-old woman was walking along a street in west Charlotte around 4:00 Saturday morning. Authorities say that a hit-and-run driver struck the woman, seriously injuring her. Police claim that the 21-year-old woman was the driver who fled the scene of the accident.

Law enforcement claims that the 21-year-old was driving a Buick that was involved in the hit-and-run accident. Police found the woman about a mile from the accident scene in a hotel parking lot. Authorities say that damage on the Buick is consistent with having been in an accident.

The young woman was reportedly booked into the Mecklenburg County Jail on the DWI and felony hit-run charges. The woman posted bond and has been released pending future court appearances.

Source: Q city metro, “Woman seriously injured in W.Charlotte hit and run,” Glenn Burkins, Aug. 11, 2012

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