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Monday, January 28, 2013 10:31 PM Crash leads to habitual DWI charge Conviction carries mandatory prison sentence; charge remains rare By Corey Friedman | Times Online Editor Wilson police arrested a woman on her fourth drunken-driving charge after authorities say she crashed her car into a ditch last week. Officers responded to a wreck at 4:14 p.m. Friday and found 48-year-old Mendy Morris Faires of 9311 Winters Road northwest of Bailey inside the crashed car. While paramedics evaluated Faires, police determined that she was intoxicated, Wilson police spokesman Sgt. John Slaughter said. Faires was taken to Wilson Medical Center for treatment, and police administered a blood test to determine her blood-alcohol content. Slaughter said results of that test were not available Monday. Police charged Faires with habitual driving while impaired, possession of non-tax-paid alcoholic beverage, driving while license revoked and exceeding a safe speed. She was booked into the Wilson County Detention Center under a $15,000 secured bond. HISTORY OF IMPAIRED DRIVING Authorities can charge a motorist with habitual impaired driving after he or she has been convicted of driving while impaired three or more times in the past 10 years. The charge is a Class F felony carrying a minimum one-year prison sentence. Faires has three DWI convictions in North Carolina, two from Mecklenburg County in 2001 and 2005, and one from December 2011 in Wilson County, according to the N.C. Division of Adult Correction. Faires also has a history of arrest and conviction on traffic charges. She was sentenced to probation in 2003 for driving while license revoked and violating vehicle registration in Lincoln County, state prison system records show. In June 2011, she again was found guilty of driving while license revoked in Lincoln County. Closer to home, Faires has four criminal convictions and five dismissed charges in Wilson County. In March 2005, the district attorney’s office dismissed a felony possession of a stolen motor vehicle charge from November 2003 after it was transferred from district to superior court the previous year, according to court records. In April 2005, she was found guilty of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and obstruction of justice. The charges were consolidated for judgment and Faires was required to pay $225 in restitution. In August 2007, Wilson County prosecutors dismissed hit-and-run failure to stop with property damage and driving while license revoked charges against Faires. A charge of driving with an expired registration card or tag was downgraded to a lesser offense for which Faires was convicted, court records state. Prosecutors also dismissed driving while license revoked and improper backing charges in December 2011. HABITUAL CHARGE A RARITY Authorities see first-time drunken drivers and repeat DWI offenders alike, but Trooper R.E. Westbrook of the N.C. Highway Patrol said Wilson County sees relatively few habitual impaired driving charges. "We catch them here and there, but we usually don’t have it on a daily basis,” Westbrook said. "I’m not sure how prevalent it is, but it’s not an every-day, every-week occurrence.” Impaired drivers could see stiffer penalties if their impairment contributed to a crash or if they had especially high blood-alcohol levels. Westbrook said judges take aggravating and mitigating factors into account and often will increase a DWI charge to one of five DWI levels. Level 1 is the most severe. Motorists convicted of impaired driving face mandatory revocation of their driver’s license for one year on their first conviction and four years when there are two DWI convictions in a three-year period, according to the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles. Drivers convicted of DWI a third time within five years or a fourth time within seven years face mandatory permanent driver’s license revocation. Westbrook said Wilson County sees repeat offenders and first-time violators alike. "We get all kinds,” he said. "You get the ones that are underage and you get the ones we’ve seen over the years who have had several. We arrest them, and sometimes, you remember seeing the same people arrested before.” LEGALLY DRUNK? The average drunken driver has a blood-alcohol level between .10 and .20, Westbrook said. The highest he’s seen was a driver who registered 0.36 in Greene County in the late 1990s. Drivers with blood-alcohol levels above .20 are typically heavy drinkers, he said. "Those are people that probably drink a lot and drink on a usual basis to be able to drink that much and still be able to operate that vehicle,” Westbrook said. The legal driving limit in North Carolina is .08, but authorities discourage motorists from getting behind the wheel after drinking any alcoholic beverages. State law allows drivers to be charged with DWI when authorities can prove that "the driver’s physical or mental fitness are appreciably impaired by alcohol, drugs, or a combination of both.” Westbrook said drivers who don’t meet the impairment threshold of .08 can still be a danger to themselves and others if they’re on the road after they’ve been drinking. "You may feel like you’re fine to drive, but it’s hard for you to tell if you’re impaired,” he said. "You may not be falling-down impaired, but it’s going to slow your reaction time.” corey@wilsontimes.com | 265-7821 |
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@@hope said...
No one says you must hire an attorney. Go on your own.
Friday, February 01, 2013 at 10:43 AM
@Hope said...No one says you must hire an attorney. Go on your own.
Friday, February 01, 2013 at 10:43 AM
It's not just Wilson County. It appears to be a severe problem across Eastern NC. Over crowded courts and court personnel looking a fast way out with little justice. The attorneys are making out like bandits.
Friday, February 01, 2013 at 9:13 AM
They do convict on the first offense. I have a brother that had nothing on his driving record at all, not even a speeding or parking ticket and he couldn't get out of a DWI even though it was just rolling through a checkpoint one afternoon after a round of golf in the summer, blew a .09, convicted. He never repeated it and moved on with life. In this case however, you can't fix stupid. Just like the debate on gun controls, laws don't stop people like this neither do penalties (fairly evident isn't it?). The root cause of this lady is not drinking and driving or the laws yet we discuss it as if it were.
Friday, February 01, 2013 at 8:31 AM
everyone can see where part of the problems lies. If the court system here in
Wilson County would convict people on the orginal charges for a change instead of trying to plea everything. This would send a signal to would be folks who drink and driver, drive while licenses revoked, no insurance, maybe just maybe second thoughts would enter in their brains not to drive.
Wilson County has far to many dismissals and far to many pleas to appease the local attoreny who only fatten their bank accounts.
Thursday, January 31, 2013 at 4:41 PM
If I am not mistaken, I saw this same woman at Harris Teeter purchasing two very tall beers at about 1:30 p.m. I wonder if she drove herself to the grocery store. What has to happen before the courts realize that she has a serious illness? Does an innocent person have to fall victim to her repeated driving while impaired? Come on Judges; do what you were elected to do.
Thursday, January 31, 2013 at 10:45 PM
