Y’all may be tired of reading about sentencing in impaired driving cases, particularly if you’ve read this entire bulletin. But I’m hoping the reader-market will bear a few more sentencing-related posts since I’ve not tired of writing about the subject. Recently, in a session I taught about sentencing under G.S. 20-179, a lively discussion broke out regarding whether a defendant is subject to more than one grossly aggravating factor under G.S. 20-179(c)(3) when his or her impaired driving results in serious injury to more than one other person. I was surprised that this topic generated so much interest. I had assumed that after the legislature in 2006 created the offense of felony serious injury by vehicle, nearly all defendants who drove while impaired and seriously injured another person were charged with the felony offense. For that reason, I guessed that judges were rarely called upon to apply this factor in misdemeanor sentencing hearings under G.S. 20-179. Regardless of whether I was correct about the rarity of its application, I certainly misgauged the level of interest. G.S. 20-179(c)(3) states that it applies when there is “[s]erious injury to another person caused by the defendant's impaired driving at the time of the offense.” So, if a person drives while impaired and seriously injures two people, do two grossly aggravating factors apply? There are no North Carolina appellate court cases on point, and reasonable minds can and do disagree about the answer. I tend to think that a single factor applies regardless of the [...]
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