In March of this year, the Moore County District Attorney’s Office identified 74 driving while impaired cases pending in Moore County District Court with dates of offense from 2019 or earlier, according to a press release from Moore County District Attorney Mike Hardin.
In an effort to dispose of this backlog of old driving while impaired cases, Hardin requested a special four-day session of Moore County District Court.
As a result, 46 driving while impaired cases were scheduled for trial during this past week starting Tuesday, May 18 and ending Friday, May 21. Thirty-five of these cases were closed this week, of which 31 resulted in guilty verdicts. Three cases resulted in not guilty verdicts. One of these cases was disposed of by the court granting a defendant’s motion to suppress. Seven cases were continued on the defendant’s motions to continue, and four defendants did not appear for court resulting in orders for their arrest being issued. Overall, this week ended with an 88.5% conviction rate with nearly half of the backlogged cases being closed.
“I would like to thank the Moore County Clerk’s Office, the Bailiff Staff, and the many different law enforcement agencies that worked with my office to make this week a success,” said Hardin. “I would also like to thank the Conference of District Attorney’s for providing their assistance and providing staff to assist my office.”
Feature photo: A multi-agency Region 6 Traffic Task Force Checkpoint at the intersection of U.S. 15-501 and Hwy 211 in Aberdeen in March 2021 netted 55 charges including one DWI~Sandhills Sentinel.
