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Mercer v. Howard12/6/2005
thin thirty minutes of the time the petitioner is informed of his or her rights. Id.
Here, petitioner was afforded the opportunity to contact his son to serve as a witness before taking the chemical analysis test, as discussed supra in the previous section. Further, petitioner's allegations that he was denied the opportunity to have Officer Standle serve as his witness are without merit. Officer Standle testified that he never agreed to serve as a witness for petitioner for any test. Furthermore, we note that Officer Standle did testify before the trial court as to his observations of petitioner on the night of his arrest, and stated that petitioner was impaired at that time. We note that petitioner relies on the cases of State v. Knoll; State v. Warren; State v. Hicks, 322 N.C. 535, 369 S.E.2d 558 (1988), and State v. Hill, 277 N.C. 547, 178 S.E.2d 462 (1971), in support of his contention. We find these cases to be inapplicable to the instant case. Both Knoll and Hill are criminal cases where the defendants were denied access to witnesses after being arrested for driving while impaired charges, and the holdings in those cases were specific to the defendants' statutory and constitutional rights as criminal defendants. See Knoll, 322 N.C. at 545-46, 369 S.E.2d at 564; Hill, 277 N.C. at 553, 178 S.E.2d at 466. As petitioner appeals from a civil revocation hearing, such cases have no precedential value for his claims.
Therefore, as Officer Standle did not agree to serve as a witness, and as petitioner was afforded the opportunity to contact his son to serve as a witness, we find petitioner's statutory rights under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-16.2 were not violated.
The trial court's findings as to the reasonable suspicion to stop petitioner's vehicle and as to petitioner's access to witnesses were without error. We affirm the suspension of petitioner's license.
Affirmed.
Judges McGEE and LEVINSON concur.
Report per Rule 30(e).
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