By guest-writer
After pleading no contest last week to a misdemeanor DUI charge, singer Bobby Brown was sentenced to three years of probation by a Los Angeles County judge, according to a recent report from the Los Angeles Times.
Brown will not have to spend any time in jail after his arrest last month for drunk driving, and will have to pay a fine of $390. In addition, Brown will have to attend a 90-day alcohol education program according to prosecutors from the city attorney’s office.
The famous singer had been arrested March 26 in Los Angeles after a California Highway Patrol officer saw him talking on his cell phone while driving, which is not allowed in the City of Angels.
After police pulled him over, they suspected that Brown was intoxicated, and asked him to perform a field sobriety test. Much to his chagrin, Brown apparently failed the test, and was promptly taken into police custody.
Sources say that Tiffany Feder offered her services as a DUI attorney to Brown, who arrest came only four days after the Los Angeles County coroner’s office released their findings about the cause of Whitney Houston’s death.
Houston and Brown were married for 14 years before the celebrity power couple divorced in 2007. The pair had a tumultuous end to their marriage, and their marital difficulties were reportedly compounded by Brown’s numerous troubles with the law.
Most notably, Brown had another drunk driving incident in Florida in 1996. In addition, sources have long speculated that Brown, like his former wife, had a long struggle with drug and alcohol abuse.
The couple’s dirty laundry was aired often during their 2005 reality show, which was simply titled “Being Bobby Brown.”
Brown’s relatively light sentence has stirred some criticism by observers who are suspicious of what they perceive as favorable judicial treatment for celebrities who are arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Brown faced a maximum sentence of a year in county jail if he had been convicted, and critics will likely complain that his probation sentence is too weak.
However, the vast majority of criminal cases, including DUI cases, end in a plea bargain. And, in a plea bargain, defendants typically admit to their guilt in exchange for a lighter sentence.
Thus, it’s very common for a DUI defendant to receive a relatively light sentence after pleading guilty, and there is little evidence that Brown was the recipient of any favorable treatment.
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol has issued a warrant for the arrest of a man who allegedly crashed his car while driving drunk and left his severely injured wife at the scene, according to a shocking report from Oklahoma’s News on 6.
Sources say that Jerry Arthurs is wanted by state police for leaving the scene of a DUI accident in which his wife was paralyzed from the neck down.
The crash occurred on New Year’s Eve in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when Arthurs was reportedly driving while intoxicated down a dark country road when he smashed his vehicle into a tree on the side of the road.
Neither Arthurs nor his wife was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident, but Arthurs’ wife, who is the mother to the couple’s 6-month-old son, clearly suffered the brunt of the force of the impact.
After the accident, Arthurs reportedly called some friends to come and retrieve him while he left his wife suffering in the passenger seat. Police later discovered his wife, who spent 33 days in the hospital recovering from her injuries.
At first, doctors feared that she would be a quadriplegic because she could only feel sensation above her neck. However, after four months of rest and rehabilitation, she can reportedly use her arms and hands, and is regaining some movement in her legs.
According to Chiane Arthurs, the victim of the crash, “I can walk with a walker, not by myself, I have to have assistance. But I can take steps and stuff.”
Of course, the injury and her husband’s incredible actions have left emotional scars. In her words, “you cannot imagine the struggle and emotional and physical pain and everything that comes with an injury like this. It completely turns your life upside down.”
Fortunately, though, the woman is recovering, and she says her son was her primary motivation to regain her strength. Not surprisingly, she has filed for divorce from her fugitive husband.
For his action, Arthurs has been charged with ten separate crimes, including leaving the scene of an injury accident, driving drunk and causing great bodily injury, failing to render assistance at the scene of an accident, and failing to report a personal injury accident.
When Arthurs is finally caught, he will likely face a sentence that is far more serious than what he would have faced if he hadn’t fled the scene of the accident.
According to a spokesman for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Arthurs is a “fugitive on the run, and we’ll spare no expense finding this person.”
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
In a story that reads like a piece of bizarre fiction, an Alaska man has been accused of driving and crash his ATV while intoxicated, with his 5-year-old daughter in tow, according to a disturbing report from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
Sources say that 36-year-old Keri Lee Koch has been charged with driving under the influence and reckless endangerment for his driving exploits. In addition, officials have charged Koch with reckless assault for his tussle with Alaska State Troopers at the scene of the accident.
The scene at the accident was, in brief, disturbing. A witness who reported the crash said he saw Koch and his young daughter fall to the ground while the ATV continued down the road.
When state troopers arrived on the scene, Koch was reportedly unconscious, but his daughter was conscious and screaming for help.
When medics arrived, sources say that Koch woke up and refused to leave the ambulance in which his daughter was being treated for serious head trauma, despite repeated requests for him to leave by both medics and police.
After he repeatedly refused to leave the ambulance, a state trooper grabbed Koch’s arm to pull him out, and the two fell to the ground after Koch resisted. Soon, though, the trooper was able to place Koch in handcuffs and under arrest, according to the criminal complaint against Koch.
Sources indicate that Koch was taken to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital and was later released. His daughter, however, was not so fortunate.
Apparently, the young girl was also taken to the hospital after she was treated for head trauma at the scene and was placed on a ventilator.
The girl’s whereabouts now, however, are unknown, as a hospital employee told sources earlier this week that the girl was no longer at that hospital, and no information about her condition was available at press time.
With his daughter being treated for head trauma, a DUI arrest was likely the last thing on Koch’s mind, but he will soon have to answer for his irresponsible actions.
According to sources, Koch had a blood alcohol content of .108 long after the crash, and he admitted to drinking a “few shots” before climbing behind the wheel of his ATV.
And, given the fact that the accident involved such a young child, and that he was involved in a physical altercation with police after the crash, a court is unlikely to take pity on Koch when it is time for sentencing.
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
Angel Salazar, the actor who played Tony Montana’s cocaine-fetching friend Chi Chi in the iconic gangster film, “Scarface,” was reportedly arrested for a DUI last week in Brooklyn, according to a report from TMZ.com.
A police report indicates that Salazar was seen swerving through traffic in his 1999 Volvo just after midnight last Thursday night. When police pulled him over, they discovered that he appeared to be intoxicated and smelled strongly of alcohol.
After he was taken to the police station, Salazar took a took a breathalyzer test and his blood alcohol level registered as a .121, which is significantly higher than the legal limit of .08.
After blowing a .121, Salazar was immediately arrested and was booked in a New York jail on three separate counts of driving under the influence.
There is a bit of irony to Salazar’s arrest, as the character he is most famous for spent most of the “Scarface” film eluding police by performing a series of increasingly illegal (and dangerous) errands.
Of course, in the film, his character meets an untimely end at the hands of a drug rival, so the ending to his real-life brush with the law will be much more pleasant, although it could still lead to a heavy fine, jail time, or a suspended license.
Interestingly, in an interview with TMZ, Salazar admitted to drinking on the night he was arrested, but he claims that he believed he was sober enough to drive.
And, in his interview, Salazar does nothing to dispel the myth (or reality?) that police and other members of the criminal justice system are just as susceptible to the cult of celebrity as the rest of us.
According to Salazar, he believed he might be able to get off with a simple warning after one of the responding officers recognized him from “Scarface” and pulled up the actor’s picture on his cell phone.
The officer’s alleged interest in the celebrity, however, did not get Salazar off the hook, as the actor is currently out on bail and still awaiting his court date for his three DUI charges.
So, if nothing else, this incident could help assuage the concerns of a public that is wary of celebrities receiving preferential treatment from police officers and judges alike.
After all, if one of Tony Montana’s most lethal lieutenants cannot avoid the long arm of the law, then other celebrities will likely also receive fair treatment under DUI laws, as long as the responding officers are as impervious to celebrity as these noble officials.
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
A top Austrian golfer spent a night in an Arizona jail after he was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol when he crashed his car into a house, according to a report from the Brisbane Times.
Matthew Giles, a 22-year-old Australian who plays on the PGA’s Nationwide Tour, was allegedly intoxicated when he crashed his car through a wall and reportedly severed a gas pipe, which forced police to evacuate people from several homes in the area.
Sources indicate that Giles faces a felony DUI charge because prosecutors felt that his high level of intoxication and wild behavior amounted to an “extreme” violation of DUI laws.
The accident happened in Gilbert, a town southeast of Arizona, where witnesses reported that they saw the car traveling at a high speed before they heard “screeching tires and a loud crash,” according to a police report.
Giles was reportedly trying to make a left turn at a very high rate of speed when he lost control of his car and slammed into a single family home.
A police spokesperson also told local journalists that the car “car went through a wall in the house, with the front end of the car entering the home itself” and later “hit a gas line, causing a natural gas leak,” which forced an evacuation of nearby homes until authorities could turn off the gas line.
According to sources, it will take about two weeks for scientists to determine the results of the driver’s blood test, but one police officer on the scene claimed that Giles’ performance on field sobriety tests showed that he had “some pretty high impairment levels.”
Miraculously, no one in the house was injured, and Giles and the passenger in his car were also uninjured. Had someone been injured in the crash, Giles would likely face an even more severe punishment.
Interestingly, after his arrest, Giles spent the night in Maricopa County’s 4th Avenue Jail, which is run by the infamous Sherriff Joe Arpaio, who has gained notoriety as “America’s toughest sheriff” thanks to his publicity-friendly practices, such as forcing inmates to wear pink clothing and handcuffs.
Giles was born in Sydney, Australia, but was a star member of the golf team at the University of Southern California from 2007 to 2009. Giles won numerous awards during his college career, including two different All-American honors.
Sources say Giles still plans to play in a tournament next week, but the golfer could be facing serious jail time or hefty financial penalties if he is found guilty of a felony DUI.
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
A Tampa Bay resident who has reportedly been a binge drinker for more than 30 years has somehow survived long enough to tally his ninth DUI conviction, according to an incredible report from the Tampa Bay Times.
And a Florida judge who had little sympathy for a man with a clear disease has sentenced him to 10 years in prison for his latest brush with the law, in which the man was caught driving drunk despite the fact that his license had been permanently revoke.
According to sources, 48-year-old James Vernon Smith pleaded with Judge Kimberly Fernandez for mercy before she announced his sentence.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit and clad in shackles around his wrists and ankles, Smith asked the judge not to throw him in jail, and claimed, “I’m more than just a drunk. I’m a son, I’m a brother, I’m a father and there’s still good left in me.”
Despite this plea, Judge Fernandez said the man’s conduct “simply demonstrates a flagrant disregard for the law,” which led to her decision to levy a 10-year jail sentence and five years or probation.
After he is released from jail, Smith will also receive psychiatric and alcohol evaluations, although his DUI lawyer argued that Smith should receive more treatment immediately, rather than jail time.
In the words of Smith’s attorney, the “reality is that he will go sit in a prison cell for the next eight years and he won’t receive the help he needs.”
The attorney also observed that a mental health counselor employed by the state said that Smith suffers from several mental disorders which went undiagnosed until last week but have had a significant impact on Smith’s behavior.
In fact, the mental health counselor also observed that Smith’s mental illnesses likely contributed to his binge drinking, and that the man needs serious psychiatric help in order to remedy his problems.
While the judge listened respectfully to the lawyer’s arguments, she was ultimately swayed by the extreme disregard for DUI laws displayed by Smith, and decided that a more severe punishment was warranted.
In addition to his time in jail, Smith will also be required to perform up to 100 hours of community service and he will have to give speeches to younger people about the dangers of driving while intoxicated.
Sources say that Smith lives in Louisiana and works an underwater welder. He also has two daughters who live in Florida.
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
A recent DUI arrest for young actor Amanda Bynes has some celebrity watchdogs wondering if the former child star is following in the footsteps of Lindsay Lohan, another child star who struggled when she struck adulthood.
According to a recent report from the Huffington Post, Bynes was arrested for drunk driving on April 6 after she allegedly sideswiped a police car.
For curious readers, sideswiping a police car is perhaps the worst driving maneuver to make, especially if you’ve had a bit too much to drink.
After the incident, sources who had seen Bynes before her arrest claimed that the 26-year-old starlet had been drinking at a hotel before getting behind the wheel, but that she “seemed fine to drive” and “never seemed drunk.”
Bynes’ level of drunkenness, though, will be a matter for a court to decide, as a judge will likely look to her sobriety tests and blood or breath tests, if she took any after the accident.
Thanks to Bynes’ recent arrest, media outlets have been drawing comparisons between the star of “What I Like About You” and Lindsay Lohan, who has long dominated the front covers of gossip magazines due to her increasingly erratic behavior and notable encounters with police.
However, someone close to Bynes told RadarOnline that the comparison is “ridiculous” because “Amanda has never been arrested for drug possession or stealing anything.”
The source claimed that the DUI arrest was an isolated incident, and that there is little possibility that Bynes is “headed down the same road” as Lohan.
Interestingly, despite their similar age and geographic location, Bynes doesn’t know Lohan, and she claims that the media’s comparisons of the two reveal a certain amount of sexism in the way that women are treated in Hollywood.
According to the source close to Bynes, men in Hollywood who get arrested for drunk driving “don’t face the same scrutiny that women do.” This imbalance is reportedly what upsets Bynes more than any comparisons to other actors.
Nevertheless, other friends of the young actor are concerned about what they perceive as her increasingly strange behavior, and are worried that she could be headed in the wrong direction.
In recent months, Bynes has issued a series of bizarre tweets, including tweets that included racy photos of herself and ones in which she claimed to prefer “chocolate men.”
Bynes reportedly announced her retirement from acting at the tender age of 24 after starring in Nickelodeon’s hit show, “All That,” where she began working in 1996.
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
A drunk driver has been sentenced to a year in prison after he struck a nine-year-old boy who was leaving a San Francisco Giants game last year, according to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle.
The man, 22-year-old Andrew Alan Vargas, appeared in court last week for sentencing and expressed his remorse to the family of the boy whom he struck with his pickup truck last August.
Before the crash occurred, young Ryan White was walking with his family back to their San Francisco hotel after watching a baseball game at AT&T Park. The Whites, who are from Yardley, Pennsylvania, had traveled to the Bay Area to watch their favorite team, the Philadelphia Phillies.
As a result of the accident, which was caused by Vargas’s misguided decision to drive the wrong way down a one-way street, Ryan White suffered a lacerated liver and a fractured pelvis.
The parents of the child, Ken and Roseanne White, were unable to attend the sentencing hearing because they had to stay in Philadelphia, where their son was undergoing his fourth surgery since the crash, sources indicate.
In a letter to the judge, however, the parents made pointed remarks to Vargas, claiming that he was “incarcerated because of [his] actions” but they also noted that their son was also incarcerated because of the man’s actions.
In their letter, the Whites said that Ryan’s injuries have rendered him unable to do all of his favorite physical activities, including swimming, bike riding, and performing martial arts.
To his credit, Vargas did apologize profusely, both to the judge and to Ryan White and his family, for his decision to drive under the influence of alcohol.
In his statements to the sentencing judge, Superior Court Judge Nancy Davis, Vargas claimed, “I have learned so much out of this, and I’m determined to turn things around for them and will do everything in my power to avoid others from making the same mistake that I committed.”
Interestingly, Ryan White’s parents supported Judge Davis’s decision to only sentence Vargas to a year in prison (sources suggest that, had she wanted to, the judge could have sentenced Vargas to a much lengthier prison term).
Sources say that the family gave their approval to a decision last month in which Vargas pleaded guilty to a felony DUI charge with great bodily injury. Charges related to a hit-and-run were dropped.
In the White family’s words, they did not want Vargas “to sit in jail forever and do nothing” because, from what they had heard, he was “a good young man.”
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
Thousands of people are arrested for DUI charges every day, but most of these arrests happen on highways and other public streets. Few DUI arrests are made in the privacy of one’s own home.
One Florida man, however, bucked this trend after he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol when police found him repeatedly backing his truck into trees in his own front yard, according to a remarkable report from WJXT Jacksonville.
Sources indicate that Dennis Jones, a 57-year-old resident of Paisley, Florida, was charged with drunk driving after an unsuccessful attempt to back out of his driveway.
According to the police report, Jones was trying to back out of his driveway last Tuesday morning around 10 a.m. when his efforts went horribly awry.
While backing out of a driveway does pose some occasional challenges, Jones took these difficulties to a new extreme as he spent at least 15 minutes trying to escape his front yard by ramming into trees and spinning his tires in dirt.
Neighbors who called police to report the odd behavior told dispatchers that Jones smashed into trees, dug his truck into a hole, and repeatedly spun his tires in a manner that slung dirt into a neighbor’s yard.
When police officers arrived on the scene, they claim that Jones had a strong smell of alcohol on his breath, was slurring his speech, and somehow was missing a lens in his eyeglasses.
In an effort to ease the authorities’ minds, Jones curiously tried to defend himself by claiming that he had imbibed “less than one pint of vodka” that morning, according to the police report.
In one of the most predictable field sobriety tests in the history of modern jurisprudence, Jones failed to prove to police that he was sufficiently sober to drive, and he was unceremoniously taken into police custody, where he could do no further damage to his own trees.
Less than an hour after his arrest, police administered a breathalyzer test to the hapless driver, and he blew a staggering .242, which is more than three times the legal limit.
Some curious readers might wonder if Jones will be able to argue his way out of a DUI conviction because his driving took place within the confines of his own yard. This argument, however, is not likely to hold sway, as the man was clearly a danger to himself and others, especially if he had been able to successfully maneuver his way out of his own yard.
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
Unlike alcohol, which allows police officers to easily detect the amount of the substance in a driver’s system, marijuana poses all sorts of testing issues for state officials.
First, THC, the psychoactive agent in marijuana, stays in a person’s body for weeks after the initial high has long since worn off. And, today, scientists do not have a reliable test to determine exactly how much marijuana is in a person’s system at any given point of time.
However, scientists across the country are working on developing a saliva test to determine whether a driver is impaired by marijuana, as several states look to push more aggressive marijuana marijuana DUI laws , according to a report from Reuters.
Sources indicate that scientists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a relatively obscure government research lab, have been developing a simple saliva test that will be able to detect whether a driver has recently been using marijuana.
The test, though, won’t be able to specifically measure the user’s level of marijuana use. In fact, according to the so-called White House drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, “I’ll be dead – and so will lots of other people – from old age, before we know the impairment levels.”
So, scientists are creating an admittedly less-than-reliable saliva test to gauge whether a person who is driving after smoking marijuana is too impaired to get behind the wheel.
And the unreliability of the saliva test has many DUI attorneys concerned that their clients could be hauled before a judge for DUI violations due to drug use that occurred days, or perhaps weeks, before the incident in question.
In response, law enforcement officials say that there are other gauges to determine just how stoned a driver is, including the redness of eyes, coordination, speech, and the like. But this seems to add a lot of guess work to an arrest that could lead to jail time or serious fines.
In fact, these concerns have already been addressed by a wary public. In California, for example, Proposition 19, which would have elevated marijuana to the status of alcohol in DUI arrests, failed in 2010 in part because voters were concerned that it didn’t specifically set forth a THC driving limit.
In the voters’ minds, if blood alcohol levels are capped at .08 percent, then THC levels should have an equally concrete limit for drivers. This limit, however, may be impossible to adequately set, given today’s current marijuana-detecting technology.
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
Racecar legend Al Unser Jr., who is the youngest member of the iconic Unser racing family, was convicted for his second DUI in less than five years, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times.
Unser, who has won the Indianapolis 500 twice, pled guilty this week to Albuquerque prosecutors’ charges that he was drag racing while intoxicated during an incident last September.
During that incident, New Mexico state police saw Unser, who was driving a 2011 Chevrolet Suburban, racing another car on a state highway at roughly 3 a.m. The two cars were traveling at speeds of more than 100 mph in a 60 mph zone, according to the police report.
While the other car evaded police, officers eventually caught Unser, who had a blood alcohol level that was twice the legal limit. Sources say that, when police arrested him, Unser lamented that they had “caught the slower driver.”
Sources suggest that Unser pled guilty to a few lesser counts in order to avoid being tried for charges of aggravated DUI and reckless driving.
As part of his plea agreement, Unser was sentenced to three months in jail, but a friendly judge reduced this sentence to a year of supervised probation. As a result, Unser will remain a free man, but he will have to report frequently to his probation officer.
The 49-year-old racecar driver was lucky to avoid jail time after being convicted for his second DUI, especially given the extreme nature of his arrest. Speeding down a road at 100 mph while drunk is often a ticket to extended jail time.
In 2007, Unser was involved in a crash on another New Mexico freeway after which police discovered that his blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit.
After this accident, Unser lost his driver’s license for 90 days, paid a $1,000 fine, and attended a few classes that discussed the perils of drunk driving.
Not surprisingly, some observers are upset with what they perceive as preferential treatment for Unser, whose family is from Albuquerque and considered local racecar royalty.
According to Anna Duerr, a spokeswoman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, “[c]elebrities and sports figures need to be treated just like any other driver” because drunk drivers “kill 10,000 people each year and injure 350,000.”
In response, the DUI attorney for Unser says that his client has apologized for his poor judgment and is “taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Of course, an attorney for Unser made a similar statement after the incident in 2007.
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
The U.S. Congress has launched a study into the effectiveness of “in-vehicle” technology, such as ignition interlock systems, when trying to prevent drunk drivers from starting their cars, according to a report from Politico.com.
In a recent transportation bill passed by the Senate, politicians subtly inserted a provision that asks the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to study the potential effects of a “more widespread deployment” of in-vehicle devices.
The research will be conducted by the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, which is a joint effort between the automobile industry and the NHTSA to reduce the overall occurrence of drunk driving.
The goal of the research is to design technology that is “far less intrusive” than the current ignition interlock devices, which require drivers to blow into a breathalyzer device that is attached to the car’s dashboard and wait up to a minute for the breath sample to be measured.
Several states require repeat DUI offenders to have these devices installed in their cars, and some states have even proposed laws that would require first-time drunk drivers to blow into these machines before starting their cars.
Of course, the efforts by Congress to develop better DUI prevention technology have been met with some resistance from civil liberties advocates, as well as the alcohol industry itself.
According to Sarah Longwell, the managing director of the American Beverage Institute, the bill could eventually lead to a mandate that forces all car makers to insert these devices into their cars as original equipment.
This, naturally, upsets the American Beverage Institute, which represents alcohol distributors and restaurants that sell alcohol, because the presence of alcohol testing devices in cars could dramatically reduce the number of people willing to go out on the town to drink.
In response to these concerns, those who support the bill claim that car companies would not necessarily have to insert these devices into every new vehicle.
According to J.T. Griffin, a senior vice president with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, “car companies right now are trying to figure out how to do it and if it can even be done. The goal is this would be a voluntary technology.”
However, Griffin also said his organization believes that, ultimately, “every parent in America is going to want this on their vehicle.”
If this prediction proves correct, alcohol detection systems could eventually become as common a car feature as radios, windows, and air conditioning.
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
The tragic death of a law student at Northwestern University has led to drunk driving charges for a 21-year-old Illinois man who allegedly struck the student with his vehicle at a Chicago street corner.
Last week, the Chicago Tribune reported that Bianca Garcia struck 32-year-old Jesse Bradley while he was walking in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood, apparently in an effort to seek a late-night snack.
Sources say that Bradley was walking across a crosswalk on LaSalle Street when Garcia’s Jeep Liberty ran directly into him at about 2:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital declared Bradley dead at 2:54 a.m.
After the accident, Garcia reportedly fled the scene of the accident by driving the wrong way down a one-way street, but police officers pulled her Jeep over a few minutes after the collision.
Police officers were suspicious of the car because it had serious damage to its front end, including a missing headlight, and there was a significant amount of smoke coming from the engine compartment, according to the police report.
After police pulled her over, Garcia refused to submit to a field sobriety test or a breathalyzer test, but this did not prevent Chicago prosecutors from bringing DUI charges against her.
Sources indicate that Garcia has been charged with felony aggravated DUI, misdemeanor DUI, and misdemeanor reckless driving. Police also cited her for driving the wrong way on a one-way street, and for driving with a license.
After the accident, Garcia decline medical attention, but sources say that she eventually was treated for injuries, along with a 20-year-old woman who was riding in the backseat of the Jeep, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Sadly, Bradley was beyond the point where treatment would help. According to the Chicago Tribune, Bradley had taken a semester off from law school, but was planning to complete his degree this summer before pursuing a career in corporate law.
As he awaited the completion of his degree, Bradley had taken a part-time job at a local Starbucks, which was partially due to his self-admitted addiction to coffee. Bradley had lived in Chicago for about five years.
In a recent interview, Bradley’s sister expressed feelings that were shared by the rest of his family. In her words, “it’s just bizarre. It really shows you how life can change in an instant. He was healthy. He was living. And he died. He should not have died at 32.”
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By guest-writer
A few months ago, police officials in San Francisco faced a great deal of embarrassment when an investigation revealed that several breathalyzer tests administered to DUI suspects were flawed, a finding that threatened hundreds of DUI convictions.
This problem, however, does not seem to be isolated to San Francisco, as police departments across the country have experienced troubles with the reliability of their breathalyzer tests, according to a recent report from the San Francisco Chronicle.
An eerily similar situation happened in Philadelphia last year. There, the district attorney was forced to offer new trials to almost 1,500 people who had been convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol over a 15-month period.
This offer was made necessary by the finding in March 2011 that four different breath test machines used by the Philadelphia police department had not been adequately calibrated before their use.
San Francisco faced a similar problem with the calibration of their breathalyzer devices, but they used a different type of breath test, according to sources.
In addition to San Francisco, other California communities, such as those in Santa Clara County and Ventura County, have seen some dropped DUI convictions due to faulty breath tests, but not to the extent that San Francisco experienced.
In the city by the bay, the district attorney’s office is currently reviewing hundreds of cases dating back to 2006 to possible mismanagement of breath testing devices used by the city’s police department.
According to San Francisco Public Defender Jess Adachi, as many as 1,000 convictions could eventually be altered, although Adachi does have a bit of a skewed perspective, given that he stands to benefit from any overturned convictions.
Still, the fact that even hundreds of DUI convictions could be overturned is unnerving for judges and prosecutors alike, and it reveals the danger of relying on technology when identifying possible DUI offenders.
People who are arrested for a DUI should also note that there are a wide range of complications that could arise from a breath test, including the possibility of condensation in the device that skews the blood alcohol results, or simply misuse of the machines by poorly trained police.
A DUI arrest does not necessarily mean a DUI conviction, given the wide range of possible procedural violations or technological mishaps that sometimes plague DUI stops.
So, if you’ve been arrested for a DUI, remember that you are not necessarily convicted automatically. The court must still prove your guilt.
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Copyright © 2012 TotalDUI, LLC. All rights reserved.
By guest-writer
In a decision that may not be popular with sailors, the U.S. Navy will soon start administering breathalyzer tests to sailors and Marines who are reporting for active duty on ships and submarines, according to an announcement made recently by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus.
The new tests are a small part of the Navy’s 21st Century Sailor and Marine program, which is a multi-faceted initiative designed to improve the lifestyles of members of the military.
The new initiative promotes healthy lifestyles by promoting better nutrition, heightened fitness, and responsible alcohol use. The wide-ranging program also has zero tolerance for drug use, according to a report from Fox News.
Of course, the program is not just intended to limit certain activities. It also reportedly offers programs related to topics ranging from suicide prevention, financial planning, and family and personal counseling.
These programs may be welcomed by many soldiers, but the breathalyzer tests administered aboard ships is a new, and potentially unwelcome, development.
The program, though, is a direct response to alcohol-related incidents that can “end careers and sometimes end lives,” according to a Navy spokesperson.
Sources indicate that, currently, roughly 180 active duty sailors are arrested for a DUI each month. The military believes this number is too high.
According to Mabus, the new program “is not done to punish, but to help. We want to help sailors and Marines make good choices before something happens that can’t be undone.” He also said the military’s goal is to maximize sailors’ safety, fitness, and readiness.
In addition, the Navy is concerned about sailors’ long-term healthy. According to Mabus, when “a sailor’s or Marine’s time in the military ends, whether it is after four years or 40, we want your productive life to continue and for you to leave the service in better health, more trained and better educated than when you came in.”
Sources indicate that equipment designed for alcohol screening tests will start being installed on Navy ships this month, and will continue to be rolled out through the end of 2012.
And, in response to privacy concerns given by many sailors, the breathalyzer tests given on board Navy ships would not be legally admissible in a criminal trial.
Instead, the tests are simply designed to give commanding officers notice about potential problems related to alcohol. Sources say the tests are not intended to lead to punitive measures, or criminal convictions.
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