Durham County DWI Court Process

The Durham County Justice Center at 510 South Dillard Street has a single public entrance, and Monday mornings routinely back up into a 30-to-45-minute security line as the weekend's arrests, DWIs included, all hit the docket at once. The prohibited-items list is standard — no aerosol cans, pocket knives, mace, or brass knuckles, no food or drink — but Durham has one notable exception to the usual courthouse rule: cell phones are currently allowed inside courtrooms. That's a fragile privilege, though. A phone that rings during a session can get confiscated on the spot or earn its owner a contempt citation, and the quiet of a courtroom amplifies even a muted vibration, so the safer move is powering the phone off entirely rather than trusting silent mode.

Durham has modernized its docket system with digital screens in the lobby and outside each of its nineteen courtrooms, which matters because DWI cases get split across multiple rooms depending on volume — there's no assumption that a case lands in the same courtroom as anyone else's. Courtroom 1130 comes up constantly in local practice as the hub for traffic and administrative dispositions, often with a line that spills out into the hallway. Sessions typically start at 9 a.m. with the Assistant District Attorney calling the calendar — a genuine cattle call where hundreds of names can be read in a single morning. Missing the call because of a bathroom break or a slow security line is enough to trigger an Order for Arrest and a Failure to Appear, which commonly doubles the bond amount on top of creating a new warrant.

There's no written dress code, but the cultural expectation in Durham courtrooms runs toward "job interview" attire — judges here have been known to reprimand defendants showing up in shorts, tank tops, or hats, and men are explicitly expected to tuck in their shirts.

Once a case is actually before the court, North Carolina's statewide DWI framework applies the same way it does everywhere in the state: District Court hears the case first as a bench trial with no jury, sentencing runs on the state's six-level scale (Aggravated Level 1 down to Level 5) based on Grossly Aggravating, Aggravating, and Mitigating factors, and a conviction at any level carries an automatic right to appeal to Superior Court for a trial de novo — erasing the bench conviction and restarting the case with a jury.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• North Carolina General Statute § 20-179 — DWI Sentencing
• Durham County Courthouse — North Carolina Judicial Branch
• North Carolina General Statute § 15A-305 — Order for Arrest
• eCourts — The North Carolina Judicial Branch