Post-Conviction Relief After a DWI and Concealed-Weapon Sentence

Attorney Answer

Your Virginia permit was valid in North Carolina — but it stops protecting you the moment there is any alcohol in your body, and that is the hard part of your case.

The permit. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-415.24(a) provides that "A valid concealed handgun permit or license issued by another state is valid in North Carolina." Section 14-269(a1)(2) then makes carrying a concealed handgun lawful for a person holding such a permit — but only where the person is "carrying the concealed handgun in accordance with the scope of the concealed handgun permit as set out in G.S. 14-415.11(c)." And § 14-415.11(c2) makes it unlawful, "with or without a permit," to carry a concealed handgun while consuming alcohol or at any time while the person has any alcohol remaining in the body. So the common answer — that North Carolina might not honour a Virginia permit — is backwards. It does honour it. The problem is that the permit's protection is switched off by alcohol in the body, which is precisely the allegation in a DWI case.

The motion. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1415(b) enumerates the only grounds a defendant may assert by a motion for appropriate relief made more than ten days after entry of judgment, and § 15A-1415(a1) allows a noncapital postconviction MAR on those grounds within seven years of the latest of the events listed in subsection (a)(1) through (5). The form, service and hearing procedure is in § 15A-1420. That structure matters more than most people expect: an MAR is not a second chance to argue the evidence. Your lawyer has to match your complaint to a specific ground on the (b) list.

On the toxicology point — the absence of a chemical analysis does not by itself mean there was no case, because impairment can be shown by other evidence. Whether the record here supports a listed MAR ground is something only a lawyer reading the actual file can tell you, and nobody should predict the outcome.

What you can do

1. Get certified copies of both judgments and note the exact date each was entered — the seven-year window in § 15A-1415(a1) runs from the events in subsection (a)(1) through (5), and your date decides whether you can file at all. 2. Get the full court file: the charging documents, any chemical-analysis or refusal record, and the officer's report about the handgun and about alcohol. 3. Have a lawyer test your complaint against the § 15A-1415(b) list. "There was no toxicology" is a challenge to the evidence, which is generally not by itself one of those grounds. 4. Be honest with that lawyer about whether any alcohol was in your body when the handgun was concealed — § 14-415.11(c2) turns on exactly that, and it is what makes or breaks the permit argument. 5. File in the form § 15A-1420 requires; a procedurally defective motion wastes the one filing you may get.

⏱ Time limits apply. Section 15A-1415 sets two of them: more than ten days after entry of judgment you are limited to the grounds in subsection (b), and subsection (a1) imposes a seven-year outer limit in noncapital cases measured from the events in subsection (a)(1) through (5). Which of those events applies to you depends on your record, so have a lawyer check the dates against the judgment rather than estimating.