By Morgan Brickley
When it comes to DUI, police are concerned primarily with the safety of drivers. However, when that goal starts to impinge upon the interests of local bars and restaurants that depend upon a steady flow of happy customers, a compromise might be in order.
Just such a situation has arisen in the city of Cape Coral, Fla., where a group of downtown bar and restaurant owners were concerned that the frequency of local police’s DUI checkpoints was hurting their businesses, according to a report from ABC 7.
Along the Cape Coral Parkway, an area filled with numerous bars and restaurants, DUI checkpoints were becoming a more and more frequent sight.
While the flagging economy may certainly have contributed to slow business at some of these restaurants, local business owners have recently voiced the suspicion that the DUI checkpoints may also be hurting their bottom line.
Leapin’ Lizards is a bar in the area that has experienced just such a lag in business. Bar owner May Ann Evans told ABC 7 that, rather than the economic conditions, customers are deterred by the police presence on the roads: “They’re just not going through the aggravation. They will avoid going to an area that’s just plagued with constant checkpoints.”
Evans and other business owners in the area have asked police to help find an alternative to the checkpoints that will maintain safety on the roads without compromising businesses in the area.
Recently, according to the report, local police have stated a willingness to massage their strategy by way of compromise.
Cape Coral Police Chief, Rob Petrovich, recently told the media that he is open-minded about compromise, and that he is considering saturation and foot patrols, which help deter drunk driving in a way that bar and restaurant owners consider to be more amendable to business.
“My dream,” Petrovich told ABC 7, “is for their parking lots to be full, for them to be fruitful and at the same time – everybody be safe.”
One local owner welcomes the new strategy. “Hopefully they’ll cut back a little on that and there will be a more personal relationship with the officers rather than a show of force kind of deal,” said Ed Sheridan, the co-owner of Eddie Fishbowls.
The bars and restaurants in the area have agreed, in turn, to explore creative ways to help prevent drunk driving, like taxi shares.
By Editor
According to News 4 in Jacksonville, Fla., a Tampa man was arrested Wednesday, August 20 for DUI while in a school zone.
The police said that Michael Trotter Shaffer, 28, had a blood alcohol level of more than four times the legal limit.
Shaffer was arrested around 2pm after being pulled over by a deputy monitoring traffic in front of an elementary school.
The breath tests registered his blood alcohol level at .376 and .367. The officers charged Shaffer with a DUI, driving with license revoked-habitual offender, battery of a law enforcement officer and obstructing or opposing an officer.
By Editor
An Ocala, Florida man was found not guilty of DUI manslaughter and DUI with property damage. The Ocala Star-Banner reports that David Andrew Ballinger had faced up to 31 years in prison and $20,000 in fines.
The Star-Banner earlier reported that the Florida Highway Patrol had responded, in January, to a single-vehicle crash. They found Robert Lewis Wilson pinned beneath the vehicle. Witnesses told investigators they had seen a man jump out of the truck and try to help Wilson, but that the man had run away.
Five hours after the crash, police went to Ballinger’s home and drew blood. His blood alcohol level was 0.05 percent, five hours after the crash.
A Florida Department of Law Enforcement toxicologist testified Ballinger’s BAC could have been above legal limit for DUI of 0.08 percent at the time of the crash. The Star-Banner’s article does not indicate whether Ballinger argued he had drank alcohol following the crash.
It appears that convincing juries that a driver was DUI when his measured BAC was below 0.08 percent is becoming increasing difficult.
By Editor
Prosecutors in Hillsborough, Fla. have been forced to drop more than 60 of former sheriff’s Deputy Daniel Brock’s DUI arrests between October 2005 and October 2006.
Brock was fired after an internal review found he had arrested 58 people with a blood alcohol level (BAC) below the legal limit for DUI in Florida, often without evidence of suspicious driving actions, positive urine samples, or videos to back his arrests.
Brock had forced a particular DUI suspect to give a blood sample after a crash without serious injury. A blood draw is only allowed if authorities have evidence that someone sustained “serious bodily injury” in the crash.
The driver’s case was dropped without even filing charges.
By Editor
A Florida driver, pulled over for DUI, faces felony charges of bribery.
Mark L. Tearney offered two Brevard County Sheriff’s deputies $500 to take a breath test in his place. He has been charged with two counts of bribery, along with a misdemeanor DUI offense and a citation for speeding in an enhanced penalty zone.
The officers were watching for speeders in a construction zone when they clocked an SUV doing 106 mph.
Allegedly, during field sobriety tests, Tearney said, “I know this is a stupid question, but what if I gave you each $500 to take the test for me.”
Tearney has two previous DUI arrests.
By Tiffany Sanders, ESQ.
Over the past several months, hundreds of DUI cases in Florida have been lost, pled down or left hanging as prosecutors and defense attorneys argued over the source code for the Intoxilyzer 5000.
The battle caused such a snag in the legal system that the state legislature took action to prevent the issue from arising in future cases.
Today an appellate panel in Seminole County, where judges had rejected breathalyzer evidence in hundreds of cases, ruled that those judges were wrong.
Hundreds of Florida DUI cases have already been dismissed, tried or plea-bargained since the controversy arose, but those cases still pending are now free to move forward with the breathalyzer evidence.
The court ruling and legislative action seem to ensure that such arguments from DUI attorneys won’t be well received in the future.