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North Carolina v. Craig Raymond Knoll6/30/1988
C. App. 228, 234, 352 S.E.2d 463, 466 (1987) (quoting State v. Dietz, 289 N.C. 488, 493, 223 S.E.2d 357, 360 (1976)). Such was exactly the situation in the three cases now before us, and the several trial judges correctly so found.
Each 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. State v. Graves, 251 N.C. 550, 112 S.E.2d 85 (1960).
Accordingly, the decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cases are remanded to the Court of Appeals for further remand to the Superior Court, Wake County, for reinstatement of the judgment of dismissal in each of the cases.
Reversed.
Disposition
Reversed.
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