Articles Tagged with IMPAIRED DRIVING NC

The North Carolina Court of Appeals filed State v. Alston, No. COA25-291, on February 18, 2026, resolving an appeal arising from a driving-while-impaired conviction entered upon an Alford plea in Alamance County Superior Court. The opinion addresses two distinct issues that arise regularly in DWI defense practice:

1. What the totality-of-the-circumstances standard actually demands when a defendant challenges the facial validity of a probable cause determination based on officer observations?
2. What appellate rights survive when a defendant enters a guilty or Alford plea without first cataloguing every intended issue to preserve?