Misdemeanor Charge for Driving on a Revoked License

[Marvin Heemeyer]

My question involves a driver's license issued by the State of: North Carolina

I am a 45 year old male. I have never had a driving violation greater then speeding. On July 25th 2005 my license expired. I did not realize they had expired until i went through a license check. The officer did not write me a ticket, he just advised me to get them. I immediately went to the DMV to renew my expired license. The DMV told me that i had a traffic violation in Denver CO that i had not paid the fine. I contacted Denver DMV and they claimed i had a citation from when i was there on vacation and was in a fender bender while driving a rental car (paid for full insurance). The cops never wrote me a citation. They claim he did and i owed 105.00. So, just to clear things up i sent the 105.00 and they sent a letter releasing the hold on my license. Ok, i went back to the DMV with the intentions of correcting my expired license.
Once again i left without them. They said i had waited to long and i needed to take the written test along with the driving test. (i had been driving for 15 years, still treated like a 15 year old). I left with intentions of studying the drivers test and going back. Time past and eventually i was pulled over for a seat belt violation. During that time i received a driving without license. Still, my license was expired. These (due to money problems and not being able to pay the fines) my driving record snowballed. So, eventually i received a suspended license.(failure to pay fines). This brings us to the present time....
Last year i went through another license check and the cop wrote me for "Driving on a revoked license". He said my license had been revoked because of failure to pay fines. I fought this in court and i lost.
Now i am stuck with a misdemeanor DWLR. My question is this.... How can they "revoke" my license when i never renewed them? They expired so therefore i had nothing to revoke? Do i have any legal ground to fight this? Also, i have been studying the driver license "laws" and i have learned the constitution does not say anything about drivers licenses, therefore by default it is left up to the states. " There is no 'default' for states to create laws. Laws must be made up in compliance with the Constitution and Bill of Rights in order to be lawful. A driver's license if permission from government to use a public roadway already given to the citizen to freely travel..passenger or not. AS LONG AS the individual driving is not doing so for profit or if the individual KNOWINGLY waives that right. Being that my license had expired and i never "waived my right" by renewing them... shouldnt i be able to drive without a license?

[flyingron]

You're not going to find driver's licenses in the Constitution. It pretty much leaves it up to the states to figure how to handle this local issue. You are WRONG about your understanding of Constitutional laws. The Constitutional says that any power not reserved to the feds or prohibited to the states DOES belong to the states. No you can not drive without a license.

Failure to appear/pay fines is a revocation as far as NC is concerned (whether your license was current at the time or not.). You knew your license was no good (even if you didn't know the nuance of suspended, blocked, or revoked). You'll not win arguing the lack of mens rea here.

Fortunately NC gives first time offenders a big break on the sanctions of this charge, either take advantage of that or get an attorney .

[Marvin Heemeyer]

I had an attorney. Instead of finding me that "big break" he took this to superior court, thinking the judge would dismiss the case instead of gathering a jury and fighting the charge. Basically my attorney threw me under the bus. I would have happily agreed to a lesser charge and plead guilty. Now i am stuck with this crap charge. Btw... information i didnt mention. My license was suspended because of 2 citations i failed to appear for in S.C. Thing is, i was not in S.C. the entire year the citations were issued. 3 months before the date the DMV claims i was in S.C. i had lost my expired old license and went to the DMV to get and ID card for banking purposes. When i found out about the S.C. citations i had to go all the way to S.C. to file identity theft in Horry county. None of this mattered to the judge. Even though i had documentation of identity theft.
Those 2 citations are what caused my suspension - i had another attorney pull the failure to appear cases and he had each of them reduced and i paid all the fines. So basically i am stuck not being able to drive because of an identity theft that the police could give 2 shits about. My attorney has tried everything he can to find out what these citations are but according to S.C. nothing shows in the court system, yet it is showing at the S.C DMV. The S.C. DMV cant even give my attorney the proper information to track down where the citations happened and what agency wrote them.
Im not trying to sound like a bitch here but i have never had a bad driving history. A couple of speeding tickets when i was younger that were dismissed and the driving on expired license. Then because of their bullshit system (money talks and bullshit walks) i am stuck not being able to even go pick my son up from school. Just because i did not have the proper amount of money, to pay on citations i did not do, from another state i had not been in for years..... i get punished.