The South American race car driver, 20-year-old Joao Paulo Escudero Mauro, made his first appearance this Friday in Miami-Dade courtroom, where the judge set his bond at a lofty sum of $250,000.

Despite this high price tag, though, Mauro soon posted bond later that afternoon, but the court will follow his movements with an ankle monitor and the Brazilian driver had to surrender his passport.

According to a report from Miami Beach police, Mauro was driving his Mercedes-Benz SUV on Collins Avenue at a speedy clip of 60 miles per hour in a 30 miles per hour zone. While he was speeding north on Collins, Mauro allegedly swerved to the left and drove onto a nearby sidewalk.

At the same time, which was roughly 1:30 a.m. last Thursday night, 45-year-old Russell Knudson was trying to squeeze his bicycle into a rear door of his Toyota SUV when he was hit and killed by the speeding Mercedes, according to police.

After the accident, Mauro allegedly drove the Mercedes further along the sidewalk until he eventually stopped several yards later.

When police made first contact with Mauro, he reportedly had bloodshot eyes and a flushed face, and his breath apparently smelled like alcohol. Mauro admitted to police that he had been drinking earlier, and he claimed that he swerved his car to avoid another vehicle that had stopped in traffic in front of him.

While the presence of another car in the road could support Mauro’s claim that he is not guilty, Mauro’s felony DUI charge could be enhanced by the possible presence of drugs, as well as his admitted alcohol use.

When police arrested him, they noted that Mauro’s left nostril contained a “white powdery substance” and the arresting officers found a small bag of a substance that looked a lot like cocaine. The bag was found close to the area where Mauro was standing.

So, in addition to the charges of DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide, the Brazilian national will also have to defend himself against a charge of cocaine possession.

Police also noted that Mauro had “a white powdery substance in his left nostril,” and that they found a small baggie of what appeared to be cocaine near where he was standing. He was later charged with cocaine possession in addition to the DUI and vehicular homicide charges.

Mauro, however, remains undaunted, and his attorney said that he and the defendant “believe that the evidence will show that Mr. Mauro was not driving under the influence or involved in vehicular homicide.”

In addition to this claim of innocence, Mauro’s attorney also acknowledged that the defendant felt “very badly for the Knudson family.”

Mauro has competed for a few years in Brazilian stock car racing and recently made his American appearance last June at the Road America 200 Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge in Wisconsin.

52-year-old James Thomas Miller, a resident of Santa Rose, California, was arrested last week on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol after allegedly causing a crash on Highway 1 near Sebastopol, California, according to a report from the Press Democrat.

When police officers responded to the scene of the accident, they discovered that Miller had driven his Ford pickup truck off the road, which caused the car to strike an embankment. The force of this collision sent the truck spinning back onto the road, where it eventually overturned.

Emergency personnel who responded to the accident sent both the driver, Miller, and his passenger to a hospital to be treated for their wounds. This is where events grew even more interesting.

When police arrived at the hospital to question the driver, they discovered 46-year-old Kimberley Turpen, who was being treated for injuries to her head and arm. Turpen told police that she had only been a passenger, and that Miller had been driving the truck at the time of the accident.

To the officers’ chagrin, when they tried to locate Miller, hospital officials told them that he had fled the premises before the police arrived.

Fortunately for police, though, the injured driver did not get very far. They soon discovered Miller at a nearby bus stop, where he was seen stumbling around a road.

When police arrested Miller at the bus stop, they determined that he was drunk because he failed a field sobriety test, and Miller was arrested for drunk driving and other charges.

Miller faces a long road to freedom, as this is not his first DUI offense. Sources indicate that Miller has been arrested for three prior DUI offenses, as well as seven suspended license infractions. Miller was also on probation at the time of the accident.

And, under California DUI laws, Miller may face an addition felony charge for being arrested for his fourth DUI within a span of 10 years.

While most states’ DUI laws are different, almost every state punishes repeat DUI offenders more harshly than people who have only committed one offense.

Possible additional punishments for repeat DUI drivers include steeper fines, longer jail sentences, possible prison sentences, and suspended licenses. If they are allowed to driver in the future, drivers with multiple DUIs may have to use breathalyzer devices in their cars to ensure that they are sober every time they drive.

After a few DUI convictions, many drivers lose their license to drive for significant periods of time, and DUI drivers may spend up to several years in prison for their transgressions.

Police arrested 40-year-old Roy Vincent Adams on suspicion of drunk driving after they perceived that his car driving erratically, according to a recent report from The Missoulian.

Sources indicate that, immediately before the arrest, police noticed Adams gunning his engine on slick, icy roads, which caused his car to swerve wildly and almost led him to crash his vehicle directly into a police cruiser.

When police officers, who were trailing Adams, turned on their lights, Adams attempted to flee by speeding in an opposite direction. His efforts, however, were to no avail, as Adams simply ran his truck into a curb.

According to the police report filed after the incident, Adams left his car after being pulled over and started pacing back and forth, in what police deemed a threatening and erratic manner.

When Adams allegedly ignored an officer’s demand to sit on the curb, the arresting officers grabbed Adams and a fight ensued. Adams allegedly struck one officer in the chest, and was able to continue fighting even after the police tased him twice.

The police report also indicates that Adams continued screaming obscenities at police officers after he was handcuffed and incapacitated. Sources say that Adams, who has been held in a local jail on a $15,000 bail, has been convicted three times before on DUI charges.

Adams is facing a litany of charges, including felony DUI, assault, resisting arrest and attacking a police officer, and reckless driving.

Interestingly, police were able to obtain a blood sample from Adams via a mandatory blood test, rather than a breath test, which Adams refused to give.

The administration of “no refusal” blood tests has recently gained traction in several states, as police officers have looked for an alternative method of determining a suspect’s blood alcohol level when the driver refuses to give a breath test.

The use of the blood test has drawn the ire of civil rights attorneys who criticize law enforcement officials for using the remarkably invasive method of drawing blood from noncompliant suspects.

In the absence of a less-invasive blood alcohol testing method, however, it seems that police will continue to rely on mandatory blood tests when DUI suspects refuse to breath into breathalyzer devices.

Of course, as technology continues to grow at an exponential pace, there may soon be a DUI testing method that allows police to determine a suspect’s blood alcohol level without touching him or her at all.

This method, though, will raise new concerns about privacy, as police could theoretically administer such a non-invasive test to everyone, regardless of their level of suspicion.

These issues serve to highlight an inescapable reality of modern DUI law: as technology continues to give police more enforcement options, defendants will keep arguing that the new tactics give police too much control over civilian drivers.

According to WMBF News in South Carolina, 28-year-old Christopher Heck was pulled over by police on the night before Thanksgiving when the officers suspected that Heck was driving under the influence of alcohol.

When they pulled Heck over, the arresting officers suspected he was hiding something, so they searched his car. The search yielded surprising results, as the police discovered several stolen items and an ID card that belonged to 47-year-old Charlotte Altman.

In response to this discovery, local investigators went to Altman’s home to ask about the stolen items and missing ID. When they arrived at the home, they found signs of a break-in, so they searched the house.

To their shock, investigators found Altman’s dead body on the kitchen floor. Initial findings suggested that Altman had been fatally stabbed in the neck.

Sources indicate that Altman did not live in the home permanently, but that she sometimes visited on the weekends to do cleaning and regular maintenance, and that she may have been planning to eventually move into the home.

In recent weeks, Heck had been staying with his grandmother in her house in Manning, South Carolina. His grandmother’s house was located next door to Altman’s home.

Investigators believe that Altman and Heck did not know each other, but that they were aware of each other’s presence next door. Police believe that Heck probably knew that she was only in the home during weekends.

Officers theorized that Heck broke into the home believing that Altman was out of town and, when he discovered her during the break-in, panicked and stabbed her in the neck.

In addition to his potential conviction on charges of a felony DUI and murder, Heck is also being investigated for the commission of two other burglaries in the area. Police are conducting a thorough investigation, though, before they bring formal charges.

According to Clarendon County Sheriff’s Captain Kipp Coker, the police are “crossing our T’s and dotting our I’s and making sure we’re following up on things we are getting through the investigation.”

While the situation may seem extremely rare, it is surprising what criminals will do after committing a heinous crime. In many cases, such criminals are in an extremely agitated state of mind, and are simply not thinking clearly.

So, in this case, if Heck really did commit the murder, it’s little surprise that he was inebriated and not thinking clearly at the time of his DUI arrest.

If, indeed, Heck is found to be guilty, South Carolina police will consider themselves fortunate to have discovered the suspect so quickly after the crime. Without the discovery of stolen items during the DUI arrest, Heck may have eluded police for a much longer time.

According to the San Mateo County Times, Sean Quintero, a 19-year-old resident of San Francisco who had been drinking and partying on that fatal night, was involved in a serious car accident that killed one of the passengers in his car.

Sources indicate that the teenager was driving along Highway 101 towards the southern part of San Francisco with a blood alcohol content of .16, which is twice the legal limit of .08 for adults over the age of 21.

Apparently, Quintero was driving home from a party and loudly discussing music with the four passengers in his car when he failed to notice that traffic ahead had come to a stop. The traffic had stopped because of an unrelated car collision minutes before the Quintero accident.

Tragically, Quintero noticed the stopped cars too late, and rammed his Toyota, which was his mother’s car, into the back of another vehicle.

When the accident occurred, Quintero’s friend, 17-year-old Margaret Qaqish was pressed against her seatbelt and suffered severe internal injuries. The force of the accident was so powerful that she suffered fatal damage to her internal organs.

Qaqish, who was a senior at a San Francisco high school, had been sitting in the rear middle seat of the car, so she may have also struck the back of another seat or another person. Fortunately, though, the other three passengers in the car were not seriously injured.

The accident occurred around 3:20 a.m. and all the occupants of the car had allegedly been drinking that night. Quintero, to his credit, has expressed serious remorse for the tragic accident, according to his DUI attorney.

Quintero has accepted responsibility for his actions, as he recently pleaded no contest to charges of drunk driving and causing a crash with a fatality.

The felony charges could put Quintero in prison for up to four years and four months, though his sentence will not be determined by a local judge until this January. Until then, Quintero will have to await news of his fate.

In addition to the possible prison sentence, the teenager could also face severe financial penalties. He is currently being held in jail on a 325,000 bond.

Historically, young males have disproportionately higher rates of drunk driving accidents. And DUI accidents tend to be more dangerous as the drivers grow younger and more intoxicated.

For teenagers who are out drinking and do not want to alarm their parents, there are still plenty of ways to get home without endangering friends or other drivers.

For example, public transportation, including buses or trains, and taxis offer safe, reliable ways to get home.

According to The Herald, Dianne Alice Webster, of Rock Hill, South Carolina, was convicted on charges of a felony DUI with a death, leaving the scene of an accident with death and committing a hit-and-run violation with injury.

Sources indicate that Webster struck Lorenzo Hemphill and his brother, Antwan, as the two were walking down a well-traveled street in Rock Hill at roughly 9:30 p.m. Antwan died an hour after the accident, while Lorenzo suffered only minor injuries.

After hitting the two brothers, Webster allegedly sped off down the street, and ran into a building, before she recovered and was eventually pulled over for speeding by police.

When she was arrested, Webster failed to perform standard field sobriety tests. And, though her blood alcohol content was measured at .0013, which is below the legal limit of .08, she tested positive for high levels of the prescription drug Xanax.

Whatever was in her system, Webster was clearly impaired. In interviews with police after the accident, she denied that she hit any pedestrians, and also failed to remember any of the places she had been that night.

To make matters worse, Webster claimed that she did not know whose truck she was driving, and she insisted that the date was Tuesday when it was actually Saturday.

The judge, however, took some pity on Webster, and only sentenced her to 25 years for her felony DUI, when the maximum punishment could have been extended to 51 years. The judge expressed a desire for Webster to seek treatment for her addition problems in prison.

At trial, Webster’s case was also strengthened by the testimony of a number of friends, who said that Webster suffered from serious psychological and addiction issues, and had been emotionally destroyed after learning of Hemphill’s death.

The relatively lenient sentence may have disappointed the Hemphill family, who observed that Webster had displayed a pattern of dangerous driving throughout her entire life.

Sources indicate that Webster had been charged with a DUI three times before, and had been charged with driving with a suspended license four times in an eight-year span.

This tragedy raises a few key issues about DUI arrests. First, many people who are arrested for a DUI are not necessarily drunk. Abuse of prescription drugs or illegal narcotics is also a common cause of arrests for driving under the influence.

In addition, the potential consequences of a felony DUI are significantly higher than those for a DUI that is lowered to a misdemeanor.

Of course, in cases where there is a fatality, or where the driver leaves the scene of an accident, the odds are high that a driver will be subject to larger penalties.

The truth, however, is that all sorts of people are arrested for drunk driving every day. And, while young males are arrested for DUIs more often than any other age bracket, they do not hold a monopoly on driving under the influence of alcohol.

This reality was recently on display in Lancaster, California, where a grandmother of three was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol while she had three of her grandchildren in her car.

According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, 55-year-old Marie Shipley will soon make her first appearance in a Los Angeles County courtroom as she faces felony DUI charges for the disturbing incident.

Sources indicate that Shipley was arrested after driving drunk on a Monday afternoon while transporting three grandsons, aged 7, 11, and 13, from a local park.

While she was allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol, the boys began arguing, and at least one of her grandsons jumped out of the car while it was moving.

According to the police report from the incident, the boy who jumped out of the car attempted to re-enter the vehicle, but Shipley sped away, preventing him from getting back into the car. Eventually, Shipley slowed down and took the boy home after he started crying.

Shipley’s daughter later took the boy to the hospital, where he had treatment for minor injuries sustained during the incident.

While this episode seems laughable (despite its potentially severe consequences), incidents of elderly drunk driving are fairly commonplace. In addition, alcohol abuse by older Americans is often ignored and untreated.

As people age, they grow increasingly susceptible to the negative effects of alcohol. This increased sensitivity, combined with the natural loss of reflexes that occurs with aging, can sometimes have serious effects for older drivers.

While a driver may have been able to drive after a few glasses of wine in his or her younger days, that same amount of alcohol might render the person unable to drive responsibly in later years.

As the American population continues to grow older, incidents of drunk driving among older drivers may become more of a public hazard.

Of course, many drivers who operate a car under the influence of alcohol at least have the decency to leave children out of the car. And, if they do drive children, they usually don’t play games where the children are leaping in and out of a moving vehicle.

So, it seems safe to say that Shipley’s actions, while abhorrent, don’t represent typical behavior amongst older drivers.

Ryan Gosling, the unwitting victim of a media with a long memory, managed to keep a 2005 DUI arrest out of the public eye until last week.

According to Radar Online, the popular star of films such as “The Notebook” and “Lars and the Real Girl” was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol way back in March of 2005.

Sources indicate that he was arrested by California Highway Patrol officers from the force’s central Los Angeles location.

Fortunately for Gosling, he and his DUI lawyer were able to lower his punishment. While Gosling was initially charged with a DUI, and his breathalyzer test allegedly revealed a blood alcohol level well above the legal limit of .08, both these charges were eventually dropped.

Instead, Gosling pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of “exhibiting speed.” According to sources, he was sentenced to two years of probation and had to pay roughly $800 in fines.

Cases like these, in which a celebrity escapes a DUI arrest with relatively minor charges, sometimes raises the public’s ire. If a celebrity is perceived to escape the consequences of his actions, people may view the end result as unjust.

However, while celebrities often see DUI charges dropped or reduced, average Joes are often just as capable of fighting their drunk driving arrests.

There are hundreds of things that can go wrong during a DUI arrest. If the police make a procedural error, or a mistake in judgment, the DUI charge may not hold as much weight in court.

In addition, courts often treat first-time offenders with more leniency than they handle people who have habitually violated the law.

Of course, even if the charges are reduced, most people do not face the challenge of having news of their arrest appear in a grocery store checkout line six years after the event occurred.

While DUI convictions are technically part of the public record, they do not have to end careers or lead to financial disaster.

By taking aggressive steps immediately after a DUI arrest, many people have a better chance of defending their legal rights in court.

For what it’s worth, Ryan Gosling’s career certainly seems to have survived his brush with the law in 2005.

The Canadian actor is currently starring as a stunt driver in the film “Drive,” which may have prompted the excursion through his driving record, and has had a leading role in at least half a dozen major movies in the last few years.

So, whether you are a big-time actor or just a regular non-famous civilian, remember that a DUI arrest is not always the end of the world. As Gosling can attest, regaining the freedom to drive again may be quite simple.

Later the same night, one of the officers, Derick Kuilan, took the bachelorette for a joyride on a department-owned ATV, crashing into and seriously injuring two innocent beachgoers.

The picture was released Tuesday by Miami-Dade prosecutors as they charged Kuilan with two felony counts of reckless driving with serious bodily injury and two counts of DUI with serious bodily injury. The second officer, Rolando Gutierrez, does not face criminal charges.

“It is mind-boggling that they felt comfortable enough to do something like that,” Miami Beach Police Chief Carlos Noriega told the Miami Herald.

Both officers have been fired from the department since the time of the incident.

Details of what allegedly happened are outlined in a warrant prepared by prosecutor David I. Gilbert and Miami Beach detective Robert Silvagni:

Derick Kuilan was assigned to ATV patrol, midnight shift, on July 3 and Officer Rolando Gutierrez was assigned to patrol mid-Beach.

That night, the pair of officers walked into the Clevelander hotel bar, a known attraction for tourists, around 5 a.m.

A group of young women from Pennsylvania were celebrating a bachelorette party when the officers arrived. After posing for a picture with the group, Kuilan and Gutierrez began dancing and drinking.

Kuilan then invited the bachelorette, Adalee Martin, to take a ride with him on the ATV he had parked nearby, to which Martin agreed.

The two drove south along the beach at alternating speeds, turning the headlights on and off as they neared approaching pedestrians. When they arrived at the end of the beach and turned around, they drove back north with the vehicle’s lights turned off.

On the drive back, the ATV crashed into Kitzie Nicanor and Luis Almonte, who were on the beach dipping their feet in the water. Bystanders claimed that the ATV whizzed by and that “they could barely see it, because it had no lights on and it was traveling fast,” according to the warrant.

Almonte suffered a broken femur, requiring surgery, while Nicanor had to have her spleen removed and remains hospitalized in serious condition.

Kuilan surrendered to the Miami-Dade County Jail after being charged Tuesday and has already posted $30,000 bail. His arraignment is scheduled for Aug. 25.

Judge James Haynes sentenced Scott Adams, a 40 year-old Montana resident, to 15 years in state prison after Adams was convicted of driving under the influence for the sixth time.

Adams, who lives in Stevensville, Montana, has previously received three probationary sentences for his drinking and driving habits. The judge revoked these sentences when he issued his final decree.

According to The Missoulian, Adams’ sixth DUI charge violated three probationary sentences stemming from previous drunk driving incidents.

The first sentence was due to a 2005 incident in which Adams was charged with seven different crimes after a drunk driving accident. He was eventually charged with a felony DUI—his fifth such offense—and received a five-year suspended sentence.
In 2005, Adams also completed a rehabilitation and treatment program.

This incident, however, came on the heels of a 2004 accident in which Adams received another felony DUI charge—his fourth such conviction.

This crime revoked a third probationary sentence he’d received in 1998 after being charged with felony burglary and forgery. This sentence, though, was reduced to misdemeanor theft after Adams agreed to a six-year probationary period.

This long history of criminal behavior came back to haunt Adams after DUI number six. Adams’ own probation officer stated in a report that Adams saw felony probation as “somewhat of a game.”

His probation officer also reported that Adams would not stop drinking and driving until he “hurts or kills someone.” Fortunately, it appears no one was injured in his latest binge, but the judge also felt that Adams posed a serious threat to others.

Adams must serve five years in prison for each of his last three felony DUI charges. In addition, he must serve a year in a detention center for the past theft charges.
The judge saw imprisonment as the only possible method to keep Adams off Montana’s highways.

The dangers of drunk driving have been a hot topic in Montana after a state representative made an impassioned plea earlier this year for the state to repeal its drunk driving laws.

He argued that DUI laws were preventing people from going to local drinking establishments, thereby hurting the local economy.

Alas, this idea never came to pass, but it did stir up some national press coverage, to the chagrin of many Montana residents.