Phoenix DUI Abogados

Some sobering Glendale DUI news out of Chicago: Carlton Fisk, the legendary Hall of Fame catcher, pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge, just two months after Chicago police found him snoozing in his pick-up truck in a cornfield.

Officers in Lenox found the baseball legend passed out in his truck on the 22th of October. An open bottle of Vodka lay strewn on the truck’s floor.

Fisk got off with a relatively light sentence — just a year of court supervision, drug and alcohol counseling, and court costs and fines of $1,250. According to Fisk’s attorney, the emeritus slugger did the right thing by accepting responsibility; he “stepped up to the plate.”

Meanwhile in local Glendale DUI news, the Los Angeles Daily News recently offered the following key reminder: “Metro rail and bus lines will be free New Year’s Eve from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. And if you drove to a celebration before having a few too many, AAA will even arrange a free tow home for your car.”

Over the 2011-2012 New Years holiday, over 15,000 people got arrested for DUI in Glendale and elsewhere in Los Angeles. Police tallied over 2,400 DUI accidents; 17 people died in those crashes. We’ll report on the DUI statistics for the 2012-2013 New Years holiday in an upcoming blog post.

If you or a family member stands accused of a crime like Glendale DUI, a good defense can save your CA license, keep you out of prison, protect your job, and stave off many directly related and indirectly related problems. Unfortunately, coming up with the most adroit defense is not always simple stuff!

For instance, you may suspect that the police operated in a less than ethical manner. But that may not be the case. Likewise, you may harbor unfounded doubts about your DUI blood test. Your true “best defense” might be esoteric. And the path to finding it — and then developing it and executing it properly — may be difficult, if not impossible, unless you have a respectable, powerful Glendale DUI defense attorney guiding you.

Get in touch with Michael Kraut of the Kraut Law Group today for experienced and effective counsel, and get 2013 off to a better start.

On Wednesday, the United States Supreme Court wil­­l hear argument in Missouri v. McNeely, SC 91850. The outcome of this case could change DUI law significantly, mainly whether the police can forcefully take your blood without your permission and without a warrant. In McNeely, the police forced a drunk driving suspect to take a blood test at a hospital without a warrant after a traffic stop. Notably, there was no accident that involved serious injury or death that would normally allow police to force a blood test.

Currently in Colorado, police are allowed to take a DUI suspect’s blood without the person’s permission if there is and accident and cause to believe there is serious injury or death involved. In People v. Sutherland, 683 P.2d 1192 (Colo. 1984), the Colorado Supreme Court held that a driver’s blood might be taken without permission if four conditions are met:

(1)  There must be probable cause for the arrest of the defendant on an alcohol-related driving offense;

(2)  There must be a clear indication that the blood sample will provide evidence of the defendant’s level of intoxication;

(3)  Exigent circumstances must exist which make it impractical to obtain a search warrant; and

(4)  The test must be a reasonable one and must be conducted in a reasonable manner.

Recently, the Colorado Supreme Court in People v. Smith, 254 P.3d 1158 (Colo. 2011), held that a police officer does not have to ask for a defendant’s consent prior to proceeding with an otherwise constitutionally proper, involuntary blood draw.

Because of their unpopularity, drunk driving cases are often used by police and prosecutors to chip away at the constitutional guarantees of our citizens.  See The DUI Exception to the Constitution.   Every once in awhile, however, the media shows a little courage and gets it right.  From an editorial in yesterday's New York Times:

Is the Driver Drunk?

Jan. 5.  New York, NY – The Fourth Amendment prohibits the police from searching individuals without a warrant, but the Supreme Court allows exceptions to that rule for “exigent circumstances” — when the police believe that the delay involved in getting a warrant would lead to destruction of evidence.

In Missouri v. McNeely, scheduled for argument at the court on Wednesday, the police forced a driver to take a blood test at a hospital without a warrant, after he refused to take a breath test with a portable machine when he was stopped for erratic driving. The blood test showed that his blood alcohol content was 0.154 percent, or almost twice the state’s legal limit.

The Missouri Supreme Court wisely ruled that the warrantless blood test was an unreasonable search because there was no emergency that prevented the police from getting a search warrant in a timely manner before the alcohol in the driver’s blood dissipated.

Missouri is now asking the United States Supreme Court to overturn the state court ruling and to radically revise Fourth Amendment law so that police — without a warrant — can draw blood from every person arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, regardless of the circumstances. The United States government, siding with Missouri, argues that warrantless blood draws are needed “to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence.”

But in 21 states, including Missouri, the police have successfully obtained thousands of warrants to get blood alcohol evidence.

If the Supreme Court applies the blanket rule Missouri seeks, it will diminish constitutional rights without increasing public safety in any meaningful way.