DUI Defender

Earlier this week the Sacramento County Sheriff began a four day amnesty program for persons with out standing DUI arrest warrants. This amnesty period will run from November 13 through the 16. Following the conclusion of the amnesty period the Sheriff will initiate a sweep to arrest those with outstanding DUI arrest warrants at their homes or place of employment. Any person wishing to turn themselves in may do so at the Sheriff’s Administration Building at 711 G Street, Sacramento. The Warrant Counter is open Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Individuals eligible to receive a court date will be processed at the Warrant Counter without being booked into jail.

As we head into the holidays a significant number of signs are being posted that encourage drivers to call 911 if they suspect another driver of drunk driving. Of course these signs will result in numerous citizen’s, not under the influence, being inconvenienced while law enforcement makes the stop and invetsigates the crime. These anonymous tips have been gaining popularity and undoubtedly will result in many stops driven by bad or irate drivers wishing to inconvenience their fellow citizens.

These signs are springing up throughout our country, in fact a law enforcement officer used such a telephone service to call in a stop he wanted to make. While the driver wasn’t driving under the influence the officer had reason to know that the contents of the vehicle was illegal, he simply needed justification to make the stop. The call in drunk drivers gave him just the anonymous tip he needed to head out and make the stop/arrest.

It makes me wonder if citizens should have the authority to make an anonymous call without having to provide their contact information, there is no way that a citizen arrested for suspicion of DUI will have the opportunity to face and cross examine their accuser. Is this another exception to the Constitution?

Many times potential or existing client has questions relating to a possible drug interaction with either something they ate or drank on the evening they were arrested for suspicion of DUI. Our office seeks the assistance of counsel from a forensic alcohol expert. However, many lay people may be surprised that such information may be available on the web: http://www.drugs.com/drug_interactions.html. This website provides in-depth information regarding drugs and possible interactions, it may be the first step toward deciding whether a “drug interaction” defense exists in your case.

A qualified DUI lawyer can help flesh out the facts necessary to set-up the interaction defense as it is possible that some interactions can provide reasonable explanations for physiological observations made by law enforcement and even explain elevated blood/breath alcohol measurements. Again, drug interactions can and do provide reasonable alternative explanations for otherwise questionable observations. The first step may be investigating the interactions yourself.

If you ever want to know where a road block will be, or know of where a roadblock will be this site helps keep track of them. This website run by the National Motorists Association tries to document road blocks and generate a grass roots opposition to roadblocks. It also has information on what to do if you encounter a road block. If you want to provide information regarding a roadblock you can.

The attached “quick facts” are excerpted from the CDC website. I have commented several times on “how to lie with statistics” and encourage you to visit those posts. The simple fact is that the problem isn’t anywhere near as severe as Mother’s Against Drunk Driving would lead you to believe. In fact, one of the alcohol related deaths counted in this years statistics will be a man who, while drunk, fell asleep beneath a parked car, the sober driver drove off, killing the sleeping the drunk.

Quick Facts About Drunk and Drugged Driving

In 2005, 16,885 people died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, accounting for 39% of all traffic-related deaths in the United States (NHTSA 2006).

An alcohol-related motor vehicle crash kills someone every 31 minutes and nonfatally injures someone every two minutes (NHTSA 2006).

Drugs other than alcohol (e.g., marijuana and cocaine) are involved in about 18% of motor vehicle driver deaths. These other drugs are generally used in combination with alcohol (Jones et al. 2003).

Each year, alcohol-related crashes in the United States cost about $51 billion (Blincoe et al. 2002).

Most drinking and driving episodes go undetected. In 2005, nearly 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics (Department of Justice 2005). That’s less than one percent of the 159 million self-reported episodes of alcohol–impaired driving among U.S. adults each year (Quinlan et al. 2005).

There are actions that work to prevent injuries due to impaired driving. To further decrease alcohol-related fatal crashes, communities need to implement and enforce strategies that are known to be effective, such as:

Sobriety checkpoints. Fatal crashes thought to involve alcohol dropped a median of 22% (with random breath testing) and 23% (with selective breath testing) following implementation of sobriety checkpoints.

0.08% BAC laws. Fatal alcohol-related crashes showed a median decrease of 7% following the implementation of 0.08% BAC laws in 16 states.

Minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) laws. Raising the MLDA, such as from 18 to 21, decreases crash-related outcomes a median of 16% for the targeted age groups.

“Zero tolerance” laws for young drivers. One study found that fatal crash outcomes decreased 24% after implementation of “zero tolerance” laws (Elder et al. 2002, Howat et al. 2004, Shults et al. 2001, Shults et al. 2002).

The Governor has signed into law a statute that will impact anyone on probation for DUI. Effective January 1, 2009, if you are on probation for an alcohol related driving offense (DUI [V.C. 23152(a) or (b), DUI with injury [V.C. 23153(a) or (b)). The law changes means that the old probation requiring a probationer “not to drive with a measurable amount of alcohol” will now require a probationer’s blood alcohol measurement to be zero, meaning that a measurement of .01 or more can result in a probation violation.

The statute doesn’t change the legal requirement that the probationer be lawfully stopped, however, it does mean that the odor of an alcoholic beverage alone will most likley serve as grounds for a probation violation prosecution.

The Department of Justice in Watsonville revealed that two separate times in 2006 their breath testing program was flawed, so seriously that the 355 DUI cases affected may be dismissed. The issue arose because the Lab failed the proficiency testing conducted by the State Department of Health Services, while the District Attorney and Crime Lab down played the effect the failed proficiency tests had on the cases involved, the simple fact remained that the machines were not functioning properly, the results are tainted and the prosecutions should be dropped. If we can’t have faith in our prosecutor’s to do the right thing and protect the public from flawed chemical testing, who can we trust.

The Denver Post reported a “voluntary” checkpoint that was set up by a non-profit organization attempting to collect data from driver’s. The check point was volutary but operated under the auspices of the Sheriff’s Department. The checkpoint sought to analyze persons blood, breath and/or saliva. While voluntary in description, many particiapnts felt that they didn’t have the right leave, felt pressured to provide samples and were offered as much as $100 to participate in the “study.”

This raises an interesting question, with law enforcement watching over, and the subjects not being allowed to leave is the Sheriff’s Department and the Non-Profit Pacific Institute open to civil liability for false imprisonment or some other civil liability. It is amazing to me that a law enforcement agency would permit, let alone participate, in a “check point,” just who exactly are they “protecting and serving?”

Two men in Wisconsin were picked up for drunk driving, normally not a big story, but in this case they were both driving… the same car. One of the men admitted that he was too drunk to drive the car so he had his friend operate the gas and brake, the catch, the driver didn’t have any legs, his defense was that he couldn’t be the driver because he couldn’t operate the pedals. A third passenger, also drunk, walked home from the scene.

In New Jersey, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court has upheld the conviction of a man arrested for DUI despite the fact that he did not have any pharmacologically active substance in his system. Essentially, the man was prosecuted for driving while hungover. While he may be prosecuted for speeding, weaving or other vehicle code violation, he was definitely not driving under the influence. This leads to other scenarios where person “under the influence” may be arrested and taken for testing. If a person was woozy from Claritin, would they be prosecuted for DUI? What if a police officer mearly suspected a person was recovering from drug use, would he have the legal right to place them under arrest for DUI and demand a chemical test? Where will it end?