scottsdale-dui-lawyer

When an officer pulls a driver over in the dark evening hours, he or she is on the alert to see if the driver is under the influence. He or she begins observations when approaching the car.

As the driver rolls down the window, the officer is checking to see if the driver smells of alcohol, if the eyes are watery or bloodshot, if the driver is having trouble retrieving his or her license, and if the driver’s speech is thick or slurred. If the officer does not have reason to believe the driver is under the influence, he or she must allow the driver to drive off. The officer cannot order the driver out of the car to complete the field sobriety tests unless he or she has probable cause to continue the investigation.

Smell of alcohol

The smell of alcohol may be in the car even if the driver is not the one who’s been drinking. If there is a passenger, the passenger may have been drinking. If the driver has been in a bar, he or she most likely smells of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol, even if he or she had nothing to drink.

Blood shot, watery eyes

Blood shot, watery eyes may have several causes. The driver may be operating on very little sleep, may have worked all day at a computer terminal, may be suffering from a cold or allergies, or may look as he or she always does. Remember that the officer has never seen the driver before and has nothing to compare his or her observations to.

Trouble with finding the license

People organize wallets in many different ways. Some don’t separate their credit cards from their driver’s license. And some people couldn’t find their license if they were stone sober in broad daylight. This factor alone says nothing about the driver’s state of sobriety.

Slurred speech

While an officer may associate slurred speech with driving under the influence, it may also be a side effect of certain medications or medical conditions. Remember the officer has never spoken to the driver before and therefore, has no idea how his or her voice “should” sound. If the topic comes up in court, the officer should be questioned on how many other times he has spoken to the driver (none) and how the driver’s voice was different from his or her usual speaking style.

While the officer may assert that some or all of these factors are indicative of intoxication, an experienced attorney knows there may be an innocent explanation.

For this and more information on criminal law and drunk driving go to:

www.gottrouble.com/legal/criminal/drunk_driving/index.html

A state trooper stops a suspected drunk driver ending in a violent struggle.

Although breath analysis is probably the most commonly used technique by law enforcement in attempting to establish whether or not a suspect was driving with alcohol in the system beyond a legal limit, the reliability of the tests has been called into question. Some scientists and experts think that breath tests, as they are currently administered by police, are very inaccurate, as far as their ability to measure blood alcohol content or BAC. Some courts have thrown out breath test results …

www.RobertHelfend.com DUI Lawyer in Van Nuys, CA. Robert M. Helfend, criminal defense attorney, federal drug charges, federal criminal defense lawyer and DUI attorney in California

If you operate a vehicle in California, police officers can and will pull a person over anytime they are suspected of driving while intoxicated. This article briefly outlines the type of field and chemical tests that are administered by officers to determine if a person has indeed been drinking and driving.

Field Sobriety Tests

Police officers call Field Sobriety Tests “FSTs” for short. These tests consist of several exercises that measure a person’s coordination, balance and divided attention. These tests consist of exercises such as “walk the line”, saying the alphabet, one-leg-stand, walk-and-turn, horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) which is following an object with your eyes from side to side, etc.

Blood Alcohol Tests

In DUI cases, you’ll often hear the term “B.A.C.”, which stands for “Blood Alcohol Content”. In the state of California, you can be arrested and charged with drunk driving if your B.A.C. is over 0.08%. To find out a person’s blood alcohol content, police officers use breath analyzing machines. However, you have the option of asking for a second blood test if you want a second opinion. This second test is administered by an independent source and you have to pay for it. Police officers do not have sufficient enough training to do this type of blood test. A hospital staff will have to do the test.

Breath tests only measure alcohol and have often found to be inaccurate by DUI defense lawyers. There are many factors that can affect the result of a breath test including a person’s temperature, breath patterns, and other substances in your breath. There are several types of breath analyzing machines on the market and they must be taken care of properly to be effective. Sometimes these breath analyzing machines are not highly maintained which could bring about an incorrect B.A.C. reading.

Cast: Uttam Kumar, Biswajeet, Sabitri Singers: Hemanta Mukherjee Movie: Dui Bhai (1961)

A video of excerpts from California DUI attorney Lawrence Taylor’s keynote lecture at the North Carolina Trial Lawyer Academy to over 100 lawyers. Part 2 www.duicentral.com … california los angeles san francisco dui attorney lawyer Lawrence Taylor drunk driving defense

The Law Office of Christopher H. Cessna www.cessnalaw.com Few offenses in America’s criminal justice system (including murder trials) call for greater attorney expertise than cases involving driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Properly defending a DUI case is just as complex as defending any “DNA murder” case because DUIs almost always involve scientific evidence (the chemical evidence obtained from you such as breath or blood samples and even the standardized field sobriety …

An El Cajon, California man will stand trial in a drunk driving accident case that occurred in July of this year. 35-year-old Shannon Shimp is charged with two counts each of murder, as well as gross vehicular manslaughter in the deaths of Ian Kinney and Joseph Warren Edwards.

The accident took place on Highway 78 on July 22nd. 19-year-old Tessa Medearis was in a Lexus with her boyfriend, 19-year-old Ian Kinney. A pickup driven by Shimp attempting to pass three vehicles skidded out of control, and into the westbound lanes. It crashed into the Lexus, which was also westbound, ending up on top of the car. Ian was killed instantly. Also killed was Shimp’s passenger, 58-year-old Joseph Warren Edwards. Both men died at the scene. Ian left behind his parents, while Edwards is survived by his wife.

Tessa suffered moderate injuries, and had to be extricated from the wreckage. After the accident, Shimp, who had suffered injuries in the car accident, was taken to the hospital for treatment of his injuries, and then arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. He was found to have been driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.19 when tests were conducted two hours after the car accident.

On Wednesday, Tessa appeared in court to testify about the car accident that killed her boyfriend. The Superior Court Judge ruled that there were grounds for a trial. There will be a hearing on December 3rd to decide on a date for the trial.

For the two families that lost the most in this tragedy, it seems like justice gets nearer every day. They have had to face the pain of losing their loved ones though no fault of their own.

California has a multi-pronged approach to dealing with the DUI menace. Not only does it have some of the most severe drunk driving laws in the country, but it has also had a significant amount of success in bringing down accident rates in the state, through better awareness programs for motorists, stronger checks and monitoring of drivers, as well as graduated licensing programs for teens that encourage them to be fully educated before they are allowed to drive on their own. The stringency of these laws has led to criticism from groups who believe that license suspensions and the focus on passing breath tests, are unfair. When we continue to have drivers like Shimp who think nothing of tanking up with alcohol that’s more than twice over the legal limit, it’s clear that these criticisms are baseless.

Found this on the net