Court Opinion

ID: 9765143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:53:30.512102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:05.794423
License: Public Domain

ELMORE, Judge,
dissenting.
Because I would reverse the trial court’s denial of Linda Daniel’s (defendant) motion to dismiss, I respectfully dissent.
Defendant argues to this Court that a lengthy detainment irreparably prejudiced her defense against the charge. I agree, and so would reverse.
Around 8 p.m. on 29 December 2007, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer A. Holt saw a car driven by defendant swerve outside of the appropriate travel lane multiple times. Officer Holt activated his blue lights to stop defendant’s car; she came to a stop in a left turn lane, but began to drive away when the traffic light turned green. Officer Holt “bang[ed]” on the side of the car to get her attention, and *372defendant stopped ten to fifteen feet from the original stopping point. Officer Holt observed that defendant was operating the car, that there were no passengers, that there was a strong odor of alcohol, and that defendant had bloodshot eyes and dilated pupils. When asked, defendant denied she had been drinking.
Officer Holt asked defendant to step out of the car and take three field sobriety tests. Defendant held onto the door of the car when she exited the vehicle and stumbled as she stepped out. Defendant subsequently failed the “one legged stand” test, the “walk and turn” test, and the “finger to nose” test, leading Officer Holt to form the opinion that defendant was appreciably impaired by alcohol. Officer Holt placed defendant under arrest for driving while impaired (DWI), driving while license revoked, and transporting an open container. He then transported her to the Mecklenburg County Intake Center.
Meanwhile, two other Charlotte Mecklenburg police officers arrived at the scene to conduct a search of the car. That search produced nine empty or open beer bottles, several bottle caps, and a half-full cup of beer in a cup holder. While the officers were conducting the search, defendant’s roommate, Jack Bruce, arrived at the scene seeking to take possession of the car. Officer Donnie Pogue testified that Mr. Bruce gave off an odor of alcohol, but gave him the keys to the car; he testified that the “main concern is to relinquish control [of the car] out of our custody” in case “something happens to the vehiclef.]”
Upon arrival at the Intake Center, defendant was asked to submit to a chemical analysis of her breath via the Intoxilyzer. Defendant consented and waived her statutory right to have either an attorney or witness present. The analysis was conducted at 10:32 p.m., and defendant’s Intoxilyzer results showed a blood alcohol concentration of 0.17, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.
Mr. Bruce arrived at the jail at 12:25 a.m. and was allowed to speak with defendant after she was processed in the magistrate’s office. However, for reasons not completely clear in the record, defendant was not allowed to be released into Mr. Bruce’s custody. Instead, Mr. Bruce was told to come back the next day; the person with whom he spoke — again not clear in the record — “kept stressing you have [to have] a female to come up here and get her out tonight.” Defendant was eventually released into Mr. Bruce’s custody at 6:34 p.m. on 30 December 2007, nearly twenty-four hours after her initial traffic stop.
*373Defendant’s motion to dismiss the DWI charge was heard and denied on 18 December 2008. After a trial by jury, defendant was found guilty of DWI on 23 April 2009.
Defendant appeals the trial court’s denial of her motion to dismiss the DWI charge, asserting that her lengthy detention violated her statutory rights to the point of irreparably prejudicing any preparation of a defense to the charge. As stated in this Court’s ruling in State v. Knoll (a consolidation of three similar DWI cases), “[n]o case should be dismissed for the violation of a defendant’s statutory rights unless, at the very least, these violations cause irreparable prejudice to the defendant’s preparation of his case.” See State v. Knoll, 84 N.C. App. 228, 231, 352 S.E.2d 463, 465 (1987) (“Knoll I”) (citation omitted), rev’d on other grounds, 322 N.C. 535, 369 S.E.2d 558 (1988) (“Knoll II”). Thus, the first issue is whether defendant’s statutory rights were violated.
Defendant’s primary argument on this point is that her right to be released when “[a] sober, responsible adult is willing and able to assume responsibility for the defendant until his physical and mental faculties are no longer impaired,” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-534.2(c)(2) (2009), was violated by her continued detention after Mr. Bruce arrived at the jail. Defendant argues that she should have been allowed to have been released to Mr. Bruce’s custody after her bond was set. Defendant asserts that Mr. Bruce must have already been deemed a “sober, responsible adult” by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police when they gave him custody of defendant’s car and, as such, there was no legitimate basis for not releasing her into his custody when he arrived at the jail at 12:25 a.m. I agree.
In its oral ruling on the motion to dismiss, the trial court drew the same inference as defendant: namely, that the officer who turned over the keys to Mr. Bruce
did not form a conclusion that his bodily or mental faculties or both were appreciably impaired from the use of alcohol at that time, or he wouldn’t have turned the keys over.
It stands to reason to me that he didn’t think he was impaired to the point that he shouldn’t be operating a motor vehicle, or he wouldn’t have turned those keys over.
The court then recounted the ensuing events of the evening, pausing to question one of the attorneys as to whom Mr. Bruce spoke to once at the jail. After that exchange, the trial court deduced that it was *374likely a magistrate who informed Mr. Bruce that a female must return to pick up defendant, and concluded:
It appears that that magistrate determined Mr. Bruce not to be a sober, responsible adult willing to assume responsibility for the ' defendant. Now, whether or not I agree with that determination, it doesn’t matter. I’m not sure that I would have agreed if I had been faced with the same decision when she made that decision. And there is at least some evidence that tends to support that determination.
For that reason my conclusion is that the violations, if any, of the defendant’s rights under the statute G.S. 15A-534.2 ... had not been violated so f[l]agrantly at least so as to bear a dismissal of these proceedings.
(Emphasis supplied.)
A trial court’s findings of fact will not be disturbed on appeal, so long as they are supported by competent evidence. State v. Chamberlain, 307 N.C. 130, 143, 297 S.E.2d 540, 548 (1982). However, contrary to the trial court’s statement, I can find no evidence in the record to support the determination that Mr. Bruce was not deemed a sober, responsible adult.
Where, as here, the hearing left it unclear as to whether a magistrate had made such a determination, we may look to the record for evidence on the point. See, e.g., State v. Haas, 131 N.C. App. 113, 118-19, 505 S.E.2d 311, 314-15 (1998) (examining evidence in the record to determine whether the adult could be considered sober and willing per the statute when trial court declined to do so). The record on appeal tends to show that Mr. Bruce was indeed a sober, responsible adult, and provides, little or no evidence to the contrary. As the trial court noted, the officer who dealt with Mr. Bruce at the scene of the arrest, Officer Pogue, testified that Mr. Bruce did smell of alcohol, but that he did not administer any field sobriety tests, and that he released the car into Mr. Bruce’s custody. The only other person whose opinion as to Mr. Bruce’s condition would be relevant is the unidentified person who spoke with Mr. Bruce through a glass partition, and the most that can be said regarding that person’s conclusion is the trial court’s statement that “[i]t appears that that magistrate determined Mr. Bruce not to be a sober, responsible adult willing to assume responsibility for the defendant.” Indeed, the reason explicitly given by the magistrate for not releasing defendant into Mr. Bruce’s custody was not his condition but rather his gender.
*375As such, I cannot agree with the majority that this finding of fact is supported by competent evidence. Per the record, Mr. Bruce met the requirements of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-534.2(c)(2), and when defendant was not released to him, her rights under the statute were violated.
Having concluded that defendant’s statutory rights were indeed violated, I turn now to the question of whether defendant has shown that the.violation- — that is, her prolonged detainment and failure to be released when Mr. Bruce came to the jail — caused her case to be irreparably prejudiced. As we held in Knoll I, “denial of access is no longer inherently prejudicial to a defendant’s ability to gather evidence in support of his innocence in every driving while impaired case.” 84 N.C. App. at 233, 352 S.E.2d at 466. “[A]t the very least, a defendant must show that ‘lost evidence or testimony would have been helpful to his defense, that the evidence would have been significant, and that the evidence or testimony was lost’ as a result of the statutory deprivations of which he complains.” Id., 84 N.C. App. at 234, 352 S.E.2d at 466 (quoting State v. Deitz, 289 N.C. 488, 493, 223 S.E.2d 357, 360 (1976)).
Here, the evidence to which defendant points is Mr. Bruce’s observation in the eight minutes he met with her that she had been crying, leaving her eyes red, and that her speech at that time was clear and not slurred. As our Supreme Court concluded regarding the three defendants in Knoll II,
[e]ach defendant’s confinement in jail indeed came during the crucial period in which he could have gathered evidence in his behalf by having friends and family observe him and form opinions as to his condition following arrest. This opportunity to gather evidence and to prepare a case in his own defense was lost to each defendant as a direct result of a lack of information during processing as to numerous important rights and because of the commitment to jail. The lost opportunities, in all three cases, to secure independent proof of sobriety, and the lost chance, in one of the cases, to secure a second test for blood alcohol content constitute prejudice to the defendants in these cases. That the deprivations occurred through the inadvertence rather than the wrongful purpose of the magistrate renders them no less prejudicial.
Knoll II, 322 N.C. at 547-48, 369 S.E.2d at 565 (citation omitted). The same is true in the case at hand, where defendant was detained during the sole period in which she might have obtained evidence helpful to her defense.
*376I note that, in Knoll II, the Supreme Court emphasized the fact that the trial court in each case had found that such evidence was lost as a result of the statutory deprivations, and that no such finding was made by the trial court in the case subjudice. Id., 322 N.C. at 543-44, 369 S.E.2d at 563-64. However, as discussed above, the trial court found that no statutory deprivation occurred, and thus did not consider whether any such evidence was lost.
In the three cases considered by Knoll II, each defendant was permitted to speak to an attorney, family member, or friend only briefly; and, in the two cases in which those visitors came to the jail, each defendant was inexplicably held for several hours (over six in one case and over eight in the other) after the visitors arrived there willing to take custody of the defendant. Knoll II, 322 N.C. at 537-42, 369 S.E.2d at 560-63. Here, defendant was permitted to speak to Mr. Bruce for approximately eight minutes and was held for over eighteen hours after he arrived at the jail willing to take custody of her. As such, pursuant to Knoll II, I would reverse the trial court’s ruling and hold that the motion to dismiss should have been granted.