Trip Report - DUI

[MitchL]

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Yeah, I stopped drinking immediately upon hearing I couldn't stay in DL. I didn't start until approx. 9:45 and only drank til approx. 11:00 p.m. so it wasn't as if I drank that much either, though I did have a few shots. My lawyer thinks we have a great chance of getting the charges dropped with a motion to suppress the evidence or at the very least, getting it dropped to a reckless. There is no legal reason to pull over a random guy because he drives through a parking lot of a gas station that is closed. As to him asking why I was going to two gas stations within a couple miles, I could have been gettin cigarettes the first store didn't carry or any number of other things that should not be a cause for pulling over a car. My 4th Amendment right involving probable cause were definitely taken away here IMO and apparently my lawyer's (and hopefully the judge's [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]). The arresting officer couldn't say I was swerving, and he couldn't charge me with any citations. Suspicious vehicle = late model Accord now days I guess.

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Your chances at a supression hearing are slim. An officer doesnt need probable cause to stop you. He needs a reasonable suspicion to make a brief investigatory stop. That is an easy standard to meet. Once he smells aclo on your breath he then has probable cause to believe that you are intoxicated and can therefore prolong the stop and/or arrest you. As long as he doesnt detain you for an unreasonable amount of time during the intial "investigatory stop" then you cant win a suppression hearing. Judges dont like granting them and cruising a closed gas station parking lots at odd hrs is plenty suspicious enough to warrant a stop. It sucks, but that is the system and most lay-citizens see suppression hearings as "getting off on a legal-technicality" and elected judges know this. They are hard to win. I would bet big money that you wont win.

[dlk9s]

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Bad luck I guess... but speeding is not an offense worth being jailed for.

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True.

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I hate the idea of the government protecting me from myself. NOW... had I crashed my car, injured someone, destroyed private property... then I would expect to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for every minor infraction. Even prior to this arrest... I had a very hands off approach to laws in this country.

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So, is it ok for the government to protect me from you when you are speeding and/or driving under the influence? Because I'd kind of like the police to catch somebody BEFORE they kill me, my family, my friends, or anyone else for that matter (well, besides Hitler).

[prana]

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Your chances at a supression hearing are slim. An officer doesnt need probable cause to stop you. He needs a reasonable suspicion to make a brief investigatory stop. That is an easy standard to meet. Once he smells aclo on your breath he then has probable cause to believe that you are intoxicated and can therefore prolong the stop and/or arrest you. As long as he doesnt detain you for an unreasonable amount of time during the intial "investigatory stop" then you cant win a suppression hearing. Judges dont like granting them and cruising a closed gas station parking lots at odd hrs is plenty suspicious enough to warrant a stop. It sucks, but that is the system and most lay-citizens see suppression hearings as "getting off on a legal-technicality" and elected judges know this. They are hard to win. I would bet big money that you wont win.

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Hmmmm. I'll take my lawyers word over yours and also my teacher for my Legal Environment of Business class, who is a lawyer also. My lawyer has similar cases to bring to the judge in which the evidence was suppressed because of similar circumstances. Unless you are a criminal defense lawyer, judge or something similar I think their credentials make them a little more in the know on the subject. No offense.

Actually, had a friend pulled over for a similar incident about 12 years ago while we were in high school. He had been cruising through hotel parking lots looking for a party. He got stopped for this, they busted the passenger with some weed. All charges dropped. Judge ruled no reason to pull someone over because they are going through parking lots.

He does need more to pull me over than the fact I pulled through a closed gas station, or two gas stations for that matter. What's the reasonable suspicion (probable cause) here?

[prana]

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It sucks, but that is the system and most lay-citizens see suppression hearings as "getting off on a legal-technicality" and elected judges know this. They are hard to win. I would bet big money that you wont win.

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That is the judicial system of our United States? Judges will dismiss and ignore our Constitutional rights because we got them on a "legal-technicality"? Hmmmm. What's the point then? Back to my post about our rights as American Citizens getting raped.

[CORed]

Yes, it's the cops job to catch people doing illegal things. Apparently this makes it all right with you if they can just pull you over at random to check your blood alcohol, and maybe if they can knock on your door in the middle of the night and search your house to make sure you don't have any drugs, or aren't playing poker on the internet. There is something in this country called the bill of rights. One of the amendments is the 4th, which states, among other things that cops need to have "probable cause" and a warrant to search you or arrest you. In other words, they aren't allowed to just randomly pull you over, or search your house just because they have nothing better to do at the moment. Does it make it harder for cops to catch criminals? No question. Does it protect us from having our lives made miserable by overzealous cops? Again, no question in my mind. In my opinion, the second point justifies the first. In my opinion, far too many people these days are willing to sacrifice their rights for the sake of a very small, or more likely no gain in safety.

[John Spartan]

I was reading this site about approximating your BAC level and I can't believe what I'm reading:

http://www.moderation.org/bac/bac-men.shtml#4hours

This site says that if the average 160 pound man has 6 drinks over 6 hours, his BAC will be .042? That's one drink an hour right? A lot of states have DUI/DWAI laws which will get you in trouble for having a BAC of .05 or higher.

So if someone has a drink an hour for 6 hours, and with the different levels at which someone metabolizes alcohol, their alcohol level could be at .05 after this and they could be charged with DWAI/DUI. That is pretty nuts. I was always taught that an average sized guy would metabolize alcohol at the rate of one drink an hour. 6 drinks over 6 hours would mean that you should only have one drink left in you, which should only be a BAC of .01, maybe .015 max, I'd think.

[John Spartan]

FWIW, I agree with Tuq. I would still punish people who drive with a limit over .06, but a lot less severely. I'd punish people who drive .06 to .11 slightly, and punish people who drive .12 and over to the fullest extent of the law. The people who drive with a .12 and over are the real dangerous ones.

Read this:

"There are others who we would classify as hardcore drunk drivers. In all likelihood they are alcoholics who could care less that their behavior is criminal and dangerous. These people generally drive with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of twice the legal limit or more. Typically they have more than one DUI conviction. They are 200 times more likely to kill on the road than the average non-drinking driver. In 2001, there were 17,448 alcohol-related fatalities and approximately 275,000 injuries nationwide. Fifty-eight percent of these incidents involved drivers with a blood alcohol concentration of .15 or above. A large jump in the crash data at the .10 BAC level shows that drivers with a BAC between .10 and .14 are 48 times more likely to be involved in a crash. However, drivers with a BAC of .15 are 385 times more likely to be involved in a crash. Further, 58% of drivers involved in alcohol-related fatalities in 2001 were hardcore drunk drivers."

It's these people we need to really go after, and have lesser punishments for the people who simply need a mistake. Most of the people didn't even realize they were over the limit, while the hardcore drivers know that they are and just don't give a [censored]. The hardcore drivers with 3 or 4 DWI convictions should all serve significant jail time.

[RunDownHouse]

John,

At least in IN, you can get hauled in for a "presumptive" DD, which means you're below the legal limit but driving as if you're drunk. You can get fined and ticketed for it, and I just assume there's a similar/identical offense everywhere.

3-5 months ago, someone posted a link to a YouTube video about your rights when pulled over - Link - that will help you out with this kind of thing. I'm basically never going to agree to field sobriety tests.

[John Spartan]

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John,

At least in IN, you can get hauled in for a "presumptive" DD, which means you're below the legal limit but driving as if you're drunk. You can get fined and ticketed for it, and I just assume there's a similar/identical offense everywhere.

3-5 months ago, someone posted a link to a YouTube video about your rights when pulled over - Link - that will help you out with this kind of thing. I'm basically never going to agree to field sobriety tests.

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This is why it is important to know state laws, RunDownHouse. in the state of New York, if your BAC is between .05 and .07, you are guilty of driving while ability impaired by alcohol(DWAI-alcohol). There is also DWAI-drug and DWAI-alcohol and drugs.

If you're found guilty of DWAI-alcohol, you will lose your license for 90 days, with a minimum fine of $300 and max of $500 for the first time, and you can actually be jailed up to 15 days. Second time that DWAI-alcohol happens, fine range is $500-750, again optional 15 day jail sentence, but this time your license is gone for 6 months, mandatory. Third time is $750-1000 fine range and you can actually be jailed up to 180 days under the law! And if that third time occurred within 5 years of the first time, your license is gone for at LEAST a year. That's the minimum.

So people who are visiting NY would be wise to know that. Granted, this isn't prosecuted very often because most cops who notice drunk drivers notice people with 5 or 6+drinks in them and not 2 or 3, but if they pull you over for something else and smell alcohol, they'll test you. Or if they just wanna test you you can. They don't need a reason. Implicit consent when you drive on public roads. But yeah, laws do vary from state to state.

http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/broch/c39.htm

[John Spartan]

What do you guys think of driving while high on weed? I'm sure it falls under state laws governing driving while ability impaired by drugs, and in some cases those penalties can be pretty strict, but how is the cop gonna know unless they give you a drug test, and they can't do that anywhere except the station, can they?

I gotta think that it's rare for someone to get prosecuted for driving while only high on weed, just because these people probably drive a lot better on average than people who are drunk, and because of the fact there's no easily available test like the breathalyzer

I'm not talking about being super blasted where they can just bust you for reckless driving and shine a flashlight in your eyes and see how stoned you look. I'm saying maybe an hour or so after you've smoked a reasonable amount

P.S.- RunDownHouse: I've seen that video before. it is great. i don't want to let cops search my car although if I knew that I had nothing illegal in my car, I probably would let them, just to avoid the hassle. I feel like some cops are so corrupt and so scummy and act like such piggies, that they might be tempted to just plant some [censored] in my car and charge me with something if I'm not nice to them and cooperate. Obviously if I have something in my car, I have nothing to lose by saying no to a search, ironically.