Rowan County · NC Courthouse Directory

This Rowan County DWI court guide is for anyone charged with impaired driving in Salisbury, Kannapolis, China Grove, Landis, Spencer, East Spencer, Granite Quarry, Faith, Rockwell, Cleveland or anywhere else in Rowan County. It covers where the case is heard, who prosecutes it, which agencies make DWI arrests, how breath testing works, which DMV office to use, and what the local numbers show. Every fact comes from an official source current as of November 2026.

Where Rowan County DWI cases are heard

Rowan County DWI cases are heard at the Rowan County Courthouse, 210 N. Main Street, Salisbury, NC 28144. The Judicial Branch lists the main line as (704) 797-3001 and hours of 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Security staff open the building to the public at 7:30 a.m. The public entrance is on Liberty Street, with wheelchair ramps. Everyone goes through metal detectors run by the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office, and bags may be searched. Free lot and street parking are available.

A misdemeanor DWI under G.S. 20-138.1 is tried in District Court, before a judge without a jury. Rowan County is its own District Court District 27, with five judges under G.S. 7A-133. That statute lists no additional seat of court for Rowan, so every Rowan DWI is heard in Salisbury. A District Court conviction can be appealed to Superior Court (also District 27) for a new trial before a jury. Felonies such as habitual DWI begin in Superior Court. eCourts has been available in all 100 North Carolina counties since October 13, 2025. If this is your first court date, see what happens at your first DWI court date.

Clerk of Superior Court and key contacts in Rowan County

The Rowan County Clerk of Superior Court, the District Attorney and the magistrates each have a number in the Judicial Branch’s Rowan County directory. Use these official numbers.

Prosecutorial District 27 is Rowan County alone. G.S. 7A-60 gives it nine full-time assistant district attorneys. Rowan County has no public defender office; it is not among the defender districts in G.S. 7A-498.7. A defendant who qualifies for appointed counsel is assigned a private attorney through the indigent defense system. G.S. 7A-133 sets a minimum of nine magistrates for the county.

Find your Rowan County court date

Search the NC eCourts Portal by name or citation number to find your Rowan County DWI court date. Confirm it with the clerk or your lawyer, because DWI cases are often continued.

Official links: NC eCourts Portal (case search) · nccourts.gov court dates · Rowan County calendars

Map: Rowan County courthouse, jail, police and DMV

The courthouse, Sheriff’s Office, detention center and Salisbury Police headquarters are all within a few blocks of each other in downtown Salisbury. The Highway Patrol’s Troop E headquarters and the Salisbury driver license office share one address on South Main Street (US 29).

Coordinates: OpenStreetMap (Nominatim) for the downtown Salisbury addresses, because the U.S. Census geocoder placed 210 and 232 N. Main St. on a different street segment about five miles south of downtown. The Census geocoder was used for Landis, Kannapolis and 5780 S. Main St. Downtown points are approximate. East Spencer, Spencer, China Grove, Granite Quarry-Faith and Rockwell police are not mapped because we could not geocode a published station address reliably.

Law enforcement agencies that make DWI arrests in Rowan County

Rowan County has an unusually large number of small-town police departments, plus the Sheriff’s Office, the Highway Patrol and the Salisbury and Kannapolis police. Every arrest in Rowan County is prosecuted in the Salisbury courthouse. The one exception is Kannapolis: an arrest in the Cabarrus County part of the city goes to the Cabarrus County Courthouse in Concord. We list sworn-officer counts only where the agency publishes them.

Rowan County Sheriff’s Office and Detention Center

The Sheriff’s Office is at 232 N. Main Street, next to the courthouse, (704) 216-8700. The Rowan County Detention Center is around the corner at 115 W. Liberty Street, (704) 216-8770. The county’s 911 non-emergency line is (704) 216-8500. The county describes a Patrol Division of four squads, each led by a sergeant with two master deputies. Those squads answer calls, serve court papers and back up the county’s smaller police agencies. The Sheriff’s Office also runs courthouse security. After a DWI arrest anywhere in North Carolina, the officer must take you before a magistrate for an initial appearance under G.S. 20-38.4. That is where release conditions are set and the 30-day civil revocation starts if the result was 0.08 or more, or if you refused.

NC State Highway Patrol, Troop E

Salisbury is home to the Patrol’s Troop E headquarters, at 5780 South Main Street. Troop E’s District III covers Rowan County from the same address, (704) 639-7574. The troop’s communications center, garage and radio shop are also listed there. One Rowan town’s police department, Landis, says on its website that crashes in unincorporated areas are investigated by the Highway Patrol. Statewide, the Patrol reports about 1,600 troopers and 17,016 DWI arrests in 2024; it does not publish a Rowan County figure.

Salisbury and Kannapolis police

Salisbury Police headquarters is at 130 E. Liberty Street, a short walk from the courthouse. The department’s non-emergency number is (704) 638-5333 (weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.); after hours, the 24-hour dispatch line is (704) 216-8500. Kannapolis Police work from City Hall and Police Headquarters at 401 Laureate Way, (704) 920-4000. Kannapolis spans the Cabarrus–Rowan line, so where the stop happened decides which courthouse hears the case. Our Kannapolis DWI guide explains how to check.

The town departments

China Grove says it has 11 full-time officers, including three patrol sergeants and a detective sergeant, under its chief and captain. Landis Police (136 N. Central Avenue) has school resource officers at South Rowan High and Corriher-Lipe Middle. Landis also notes that it no longer releases DMV-349 crash reports to the public and refers those requests to NCDMV. Spencer Police moved with Town Hall into the renovated former Park Plaza shopping center at South Salisbury Avenue and Fifth Street. East Spencer Police are at 105 S. Long Street. The Granite Quarry-Faith Police Department serves both towns, lists ten full-time and ten part-time or reserve officers, and is dispatched by Rowan County 911. Rockwell also has its own police department. We could not confirm from an official source whether the Town of Cleveland has one.

Breath testing in Rowan County

Rowan County breath tests use the same instrument and state rules as the rest of North Carolina. We have not found an official published list of Rowan County breath-testing sites, so we do not name one. Your test ticket and discovery will show where the test was given. If an officer requests blood, a physician, nurse, EMT or other qualified person must draw it under G.S. 20-139.1(c).

Courts take judicial notice of DHHS’s preventive-maintenance records and its list of permitted operators. Under G.S. 20-139.1(b2), a breath result is inadmissible if the defense objects and shows that required maintenance was not performed on time on that instrument. You also have a limited right to have a witness present; see the 30-minute witness rule.

Rowan County DWI crash and conviction data

NCDOT counted 157 alcohol-related crashes in Rowan County in 2025, the lowest year in the 2020–2025 series, with 3 deaths and 110 injuries. The deadliest recent year was 2021, with 10 alcohol-related deaths in the county.

The NC Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission reports 308 DWI convictions in Rowan County in fiscal year 2025, down from 331 in FY 2024 and 319 in FY 2023. That is about 3 convictions per 1,000 adults, the same as the statewide rate. Statewide, the Commission counted 23,407 DWI convictions in FY 2025. See also our North Carolina DWI statistics page.

DMV offices for Rowan County drivers

The Salisbury driver license office is at 5780 S. Main Street (US 29 South), Salisbury, phone (704) 633-5873, according to NCDMV’s extended-hours office list. It was also one of the Saturday walk-in offices in DMV’s 2025 summer program. This is where Rowan County drivers handle in-person license services, such as getting a license reissued once a revocation ends and DMV’s requirements are met.

License hearings are separate. A refusal hearing under G.S. 20-16.2 is held in the county where the charge was brought, but DMV does not publish a local hearing-office address. The request goes to DMV’s hearing section, and the notice sets the location. See our guides to the DMV refusal hearing, the limited driving privilege and ignition interlock.

Related DWI guides for Rowan County

Rowan County DWI FAQ

General North Carolina legal information as of November 2026, not legal advice for any specific case. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. Attorney advertising.