A man in Columbus County has been charged murder, felony death by motor vehicle and DWI after he was involved in an accident on Highway 74/76. He is also charged with felony habitual DWI because he has three prior convictions of DWI all within the past ten years.
The accident happened after the man was fleeing the scene of a hit and run. He was trying to pass a vehicle on the highway and crashed into another vehicle that was turning off the road.
State troopers closed the highway down while they investigated the accident. The woman who was driving the vehicle that was hit was killed. The suspect was only treated for minor injuries. He is currently being held in jail after a $1,000,000 bond was set.
For each state there is a different penalty when a drunken driver takes the like of a person due to their intoxication.
For most states, in instances when there has been vehicular manslaughter, the offenders may or may not receive life in prison, which is completely different to that of murder in the first degree.
The laws are extremely different from state to state depending on the amount of time that the drunk driver may spend in prison.
In the state of North Carolina, the sentence for a DWI with vehicular manslaughter could be anywhere from a mere 15 months, to a maximum of 480 months.
Regardless, the laws that provide the penalties allows for a vast judicial discretion. As a result, it is often times the judge or the fact-finder that decides the fate of the defendant.
