With the recent DUI attention being given to celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, et al… news media shows are buzzing with news spots claiming that DUI punishments and consequences are just too lenient.  They claim that the DUI judicial system is just not strict enough…

Is the DUI justice system is too lenient? 

A system so infringing on offenders rights that the U.S. Constitution was basically averted as explained in the now famous speech given by one of the most prominent DUI lawyers in the country Lawrence Taylor called the DUI exception to the Constitution. 

How much further can such an aggressive system go?  And is it necessary to continue to disregard the U.S. Constitution?  Are we being lied to?  Can we stop deaths by continuing to crack down on DUI ? Let’s take a deeper look at the issue…

Why DUI Laws Are A Hot Topic

Unfortunately there is alot of misinformation out there surrounding DUI laws.  The average person who hasn’t looked into this issue just assumes that this is a good thing because drunk driving is a dangerous thing… which it is.  No one condones drunk driving in any fashion, but are the numbers accurate?

The numbers do show a problematic increase in DUI deaths but the sad truth is that the numbers say that because they are made to say that.  Organizations like MADD have become a major political lobbying force due to the incredible amounts of money that they have. 

They lobby to create broad ’definitions’ that are then used to classify accidents/fatalities as ‘alcohol related’ when it comes to a historical basis.  They then use these inflated statistics to further their own agenda.  Alcohol related now encompasses such a broad classification that a sober driver could wreck his/her car in an accident with another sober driver and if a passenger in either car had any amount of traceable alcohol in their body then the accident would be considered ‘alcohol related.’  So if there was a death or serious injury that would be chalked up to ‘drunk drivers on the roads.’

In fact the actual statistics show that speeding, and cell phone usage are much greater problems when it comes to vehicular deaths.  But MADD doesn’t like that.  They don’t want alcohol out of the spotlight so to speak.

So is The DUI Justice System Too Easy?

That depends on who you ask.

 

 

 

This upcoming labor day weekend in Washington state there’s a DUI prevention campaign entitled, “Drive Hammered, Get Nailed.”  Where the state troopers and other law enforcement agencies step up DUI patrols under the guise of a catchy slogan.

What the slogan should be in Washington is “Drive Hammered, Get Nailed Unless You’re a Cop!”  That’s right… a look back at the last seven years shows that Washington state is notorious for giving cops “professional courtesy” when it comes to DUI offenses.

Let’s see what the statistics show…

63 cases involving police officers in Washington state show that 6 kept their drivers licenses due to paperwork not being filed within a 50 day time period…  which incidentally never happens to average citizens.  In addition only about 1 out of 4 cops who refused a breath test actually lost their drivers license compared to 16 citizens losing their drivers license out of every 17 who refuse a breath test.

In addition 5 out of those 63 cases were thrown out all together and not even prosecuted.  1 police officer, Gurdial Garcha was 6 times over the legal limit… count it… 6 times over the legal limit and only received a 2 day suspension from the dept. and lost 2 vacation days.

While Washington state may have come up with a catchy new slogan “Drive Hammered, Get Nailed” it’s not very accurate if we factor in WA police officers involved in DUI cases.

 

Ok, not sure if any of you have been following this ground breaking case pertaining to DUI defense.  Here’s the short version…

The DUI breath machine (called the Intoxilyzer 5000) that is used to determine your Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) at the police station is basically- a big computer.  Computers run on software and the Intoxilyzer 5000 is no different.  As many of you know the Intoxilyzer machine is very inaccurate in its readings and a common practice in DUI defense is to challenge the breath test reading that the machine spits out due to it’s widely known inaccuracies.

Well, in order to effectively do that DUI lawyers (on behalf of their clients) have been requesting the source code to the software that runs the Intoxilyzer machine so that they can see how the machine really works.  Well the government and the makers of the machine were denying these requests to see the source code saying that it was ‘proprietary copyrighted’ information and would not be shared.

So how do you challenge the breath test machine if you don’t know how the heck the thing works? 

Simple… you don’t. 

That was the governments stance until recently.  Just a few days ago the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in favor of a defendant and allowed access to the DUI breath test source code.  This is ground breaking because now the software will be able to be analyzed and a proper DUI defense mounted (if the source code really gets released).

Reference:  DUI Source Code

 

DUI laws today in this country are certainly at a crossroads.  Now this post isn’t going to merely complain and whine about the status of DUI laws but more to provide an update and perspective about where we’re at and what still needs to be done to ensure a safe and fair enviornment for us all.  Please comment and let me know what you think.

Nationwide, DUI is treated as a very serious event which it should be but there is still a huge problem in punishment gradients and law enforcement.  Therein lies the problems with DUI law; punishment gradients and enforcement.  Let me explain…

What I refer to as a DUI punishment gradient describes 2 things, the severity of the punishment as it relates to the recidivism or number of offenses AND the severity of the punishment within each numbered offense (ie.. first offense punishments, second offense punishments, etc…). 

There is simply too much of a ‘one size fits all’ method of sanctions in the DUI punishment gradient.  There is not enough differentiation based on actual events and actual offenders.  Basically what this means is that we’re applying a blanket punishment to an individual event.  Now, before you go and complain and say, ‘hey that’s what criminals get’ keep in mind we haven’t discussed the other aspect of DUI laws, law enforcement.  And in many cases they even pre-write their police reports out for DUI in batches.

The problem with our DUI punishment gradient is that we take questionable offenders (borderline cases that we prosecute) and then apply maximum sanctions against.  There is not enough differentiation based on actual events… To further explain this think about it this way;  is it the same thing to get caught driving on the highway DUI and weaving between lines at 80 mph or to calmly and safely pull through a DUI checkpoint with some alcohol in your system?  They are punished very similarly but in 1 instance we had someone who was actually a threat to the safety of others and in the other instance we have someone who was not.

Lastly, another major problem in DUI laws is the inherrent bias of the arresting officer and lack of prevention methods.  I won’t belabor this point as I’m sure it’s understood and well known that police officers act as judge, jury and prosecution during a DUI stop and subsequent case. 

They stop and detain a person based on their own reasoning, collect whatever evidence they choose to gather- usually NEVER any evidence in the offenders favor—> which is a HUGE discrepancy… 

How can we have a supposedly impartial evidence collector (the police officer) when they are attempting to justify their own actions?  How can we rely on their ‘evidence’ when they are backing up their own actions!!?  Would anyone undermine their own actions and decisions by providing contradictory evidence?  No.  BUT I guarantee you every single DUI stop has some evidence in favor of the suspect.  Think about that.

There is an inherrent problem there. 

But again, I wont belabor the point any further.  I feel the above 2 aspects of DUI laws in this country must be changed if we are to restore our Constitutional freedoms and effectively provide our citizens with the safety they deserve. 

Summing up this post, the best way to improve our DUI laws and create fair safe roadway’s nationwide is not to arrest and convict MORE people for DUI but to provide a more appropriate DUI punishment gradient as well as figure out a way to correct the inherrent flaws in giving too much power to our law enforcement.

Please let me know what you think?