State v. Wilson, COA24-442, ___ N.C. App. ___ (Mar. 19, 2025)

In this Watauga County case, defendant appealed the sentence he received after pleading guilty to possession of a stolen firearm, arguing error in calculating his prior record level. The Court of Appeals majority agreed, vacating defendant’s sentence and remanding for resentencing.

During sentencing, the trial court calculated defendant’s prior record level as Level III with six points, including one point for defendant’s misdemeanor conviction of driving while license revoked for impaired driving (DWLR-Impaired Revocation). On appeal, defendant argued that the DWLR-Impaired Revocation conviction was exempt from prior record level calculations under G.S. 15A-1340.14(b)(5) as it is an “other misdemeanor traffic offense” identified under the statute. Slip Op. at 2-3. This led the court to conclude that defendant “should have been sentenced as a PRL II, rather than a PRL III.” Id. at 3.

The State argued that this error was not prejudicial, but the court disagreed, noting the holding in State v. Williams, 355 N.C. 501 (2002), that a prior record level error prejudices a defendant even if the sentence given fell within the appropriate presumptive range.

Judge Murry dissented, agreeing that the prior record level calculation was error but that the error was harmless and did not justify remand for resentencing.