Maryland DUI Lawyer Blog

.05 under the limit, under arrest

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:46:25 -0500

In my last blog post I indicated that we had another .05 BAC DUI case pending in the District Court. While not totally unusual, it is unfortunate. People are often times surprised to learn that they can be and probably will be, arrested and charged with DUI if they blow a .05.

You see, the Government has a slogan, "over the limit under arrest"; it is well known that the legal limit in this Country is .08. The problem, as I have previously written, is that this information is misleading. In fact, you can be charged with DUI for ANY number that the investigating officer (I/O) feels like arresting. Ie., he can arrest any person that he feels may help his arrest numbers at the end of the month, even if the driver's BAC is .04 or .05 (half the legal limit). Mind you that the Maryland State Law is written that a .05 BAC or lower yields a presumption that the person is NOT intoxicated. But have no fear, if you catch an officer on a bad day or possibly without enough arrests for the month, you're going in.

So getting back to the case.....

Doesn't pay to be drunk and stupid

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:45:57 -0500

Holy smoke!
It's tough enough to deal with the police on their rampage to stop all DUI drivers and drivers in general for their illegal activity of driving on Maryland roads, however in some cases, people just bring problems on themselves.

In this brilliant story, the PASSENGER was taken to the station when his driver was arrested because he was too drunk to drive. Apparently the passenger became indignant about the fact that his drunk butt was in the station, even after he was set free, he went about the business of urinating on a sign outside the station and is alleged to have "kicked" the sign he was peeing on.

Well, let it be known that the police do not take kindly to having signs kicked or peed upon because as a result of this unruly behavior, the rebel rouser was apparently arrested. The problem is, during the arrest procedure or at least when the cops went outside their station to advise the young man that it was not ok to pee on their signs, the man apparently took a swing at the cop!

Whoops, always a bad idea to take a swing at cop, drunk or sober! You see, not only are you going to get your ass kicked when you do that, the police will arrest you and throw the book at you. Not a totally unfair result I might ad. Despite the police sometimes being unfairly aggressive in their traffic enforcement activity, (like the .05 case I will be defending next week-blog to follow), they should not have be involved in physical altercations, particularly if the Defendant is drunk and/or stupid and/or both.

If you want a good old fashion ass kicking or otherwise desire to paint a target directly on your face, there are easier ways to do that which do not land you in jail.

Bottom line: If you must get drunk, do try not to be stupid.

Police quotas rear their ugly head...again

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:10:47 -0500

I have written about DUI arrest quotas before, they are illegal. Quotas are when the police brass tells the rank and file police officers that they are to apprehend X number of traffic/dui offenders over a given period of time. If the cops do what they are told, they can be rewarded with anything from advancement to bonuses to time off etc. If they fail to meet their quota then bad things can happen, like retraining (think Cold War Russia).

The police routinely deny utilizing quotas stating that they are illegal (wink), which in fact they are according to Maryland Law. The basis for a stop and arrest is supposed to be purely one of probable cause of a crime, not one based in motivation of the police officer to achieve something of value for doing his job.

It seems that Howard County law enforcement (in this instance the Howard County Police Chief allegedly) got their/his hand stuck in the old cookie jar. Judge Hantman, sitting on the Howard County District Court bench heard the matter of a female driver that was stopped for speeding. According to Court documents, she had a .17 BAC and was charged accordingly. However, it appears that the police and the brass, acting allegedly in some part as a result of a Federal Grant, were given quotas to meet. This is a no-no. The brass knows this and the police know it too. Now, thanks to the enviable Honorable Judge Hantman, the police know that the Courts are watching, and that the Judges are not just going to go along with business as usual. Ie. Wink wink, arrest everybody and keep up numbers up, even if they were driving below the speed limit and have a .04 BAC. (which does happen).

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, etc.....

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:39:21 -0500

The holiday season is upon us which means party, party, party; which actually translates into eat, drink, eat, drink. Please be reminded during this season to either limit the drinking, appoint a designated driver or take a cab! It is so much easier and less expensive to pay a cab then it is to retain us for a serious DUI charge.

As a reminder, the police are out there in force and boy do they love making DUI arrests. I was defending a client today who suffers from MS. She was stopped by the police and they apparently smelled alcohol on her breath. Because of her medical condition she was unable satisfactorily perform the field sobriety tests and because she was so emotional at the arrest, she was unable to adequately blow in the machine. She was charged with a refusal to blow as well as all the DUI citations.

We defended this nice young lady at the Administrative hearing where the MVA was attempting to take her license. We won that hearing and thus the MVA was unable to sink it's claws into her license. I appeared in Court today and after much debate, I was able to have all the alcohol charges thrown out; a positively wonderful result for our client.

Are we making any difference at all?

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 14:19:19 -0500

Last Wednesday I was fortunate to attend a U2 concert at Raven's Stadium in Baltimore. It was a cool show but it was the third time that I had seen them so it lost some of its allure. Prior to the show however I was at Lexington Market in Baltimore City where I met a number of people. Interestingly the beer that we were all consuming was sold in pitcher sized plastic glasses that I had not seen before, no wonder people get drunk and get DUIs; heck there should be law against selling pitcher size glasses of beer that you could practically jump into and swim around.

Anyway, we struck up a conversation with a pleasant gentleman from Tennessee and his friend; he was enjoying a “grande cerveza” with us when the topic came up of the billboards all over Baltimore City regarding drunk driving and being a "loser" and the cost of a DUI of approximately $15,000.00. Wow, I wish the cost was anywhere near $15,000.00, it might make all the pressure, struggle, turmoil, public and judicial bias that we suffer as counsel defending these matters a little easier.

Be that as it may, the billboards in addition to indicating a $15,000.00 mistake also indicate that there were “24,000 losers” last year. Hmmm. That got me thinking, several years ago when I looked into how many DUIs there were in Maryland, the same figure was revealed, 24,000 people who were alleged to have made a mistake. Roughly 5 years later and where experiencing the same number of DUI infractions. That got me thinking about how many arrests there were for DUI 20 or 25 years ago before drunk driving became the "in thing" for the government to arrest people for. Back in the day when the legal BAC limit was .15 and the police didn't care if you had an open beverage in the car. I suspect the number of arrests was less and I suspect the number of fatalities was also less then what we have today.

Then I remembered what an officer told me last week in Montgomery County, Maryland; he said he was in court on his day off, that he had 9 cases that day, one of them was mine (which got postponed which means he has to come back again) and that he was getting over time for being there on his day off so he didn't mind being there.

U.S. Senators all in a tizzy over DUI Apps on Apple and Google

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:46:08 -0500

Apparently four Democratic senators wrote a letter to Apple, RIM (Blackberry) and Google requesting that they discontinue distributing the app(s) which let drivers share information in real time concerning the location of DUI checkpoints roadblocks. It seems the Senators are upset because they do not want this information shared among the public because they want as many drivers as possible to be snared in these dubious road blacks. The interesting thing is there is significant case law concerning DUI roadblocks in Maryland and throughout the country. In Maryland it appears that the good Senators may not be up to speed on the current state of the law.
At the outset, drivers have a 4th Amendment Constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures by the Government unless there exists reasonable articulable suspicion to believe that a driver is engaged in some form of criminal behavior. This is a very important right because it protects you as an American citizen against the overzealous Government. It is the difference between living in America versus living in Lybia. This is what deters the cops from kicking your door in at 3:00 a.m. simply because the doughnut shop is closed and they have nothing else to do. Unfortunately for the people, the Courts have been successful in eroding and restricting this very important legal right in the name of DUI prosecution.
Years back, the Michigan Supreme Court recognized a citizen’s Constitutional right and held that DUI roadblocks and sobriety checkpoints were in fact illegal in that it was an invasion of personal privacy to stop an automobile without reasonable articulable suspicion. However, the Government not being satisfied with the Court’s holding appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States and in Michigan v. Sitz, the Supremes recognized that while this behavior was in fact a violation of the Constitution, we are going to look the other way and allow this illegal behavior in the name of DUI prosecution. There are people that may hail this decision as a success, but any ruling that erodes the rights and protections of the people vis-à-vis the United States Constitution, is definitely not a success. The Court (Chief Justice Rehnquist) held that despite the violation to the person, there is a greater good which must be protected and that is the safety of the people against drunk drivers. The Supremes left the details about how to utilize this new found public intrusion up to the individual states. The great State of California was the first to interpret these new “rights” in Ingersoll v. Palmer. In that case, the Court identified the fact that public notice to the people was important to lower the emotional trauma of such “police state” action on citizens.
Maryland soon interpreted these new DUI checkpoint rights in Little v. State (300 Md.485) 1984. In Little, Maryland’s high court held no Fourth Amendment violation occurred when automobile occupants were stopped at sobriety checkpoints in view of the State’s compelling interest in controlling drunk driving. Thus, the Court is now finding that the Constitution does render rights to the people, but if there are compelling interests that outweigh those rights, then the Constitution is out the window. Just what the esteemed framers had in mind I’m sure, a flexible document of rights, but only when they are convenient to follow.

Maryland increases DUI/DWI Patrols for St. Patrick's Day

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:11:13 -0500

St. Patrick’s Day falls this week and many people will be celebrating this auspicious occasion all week long. It’s a fun time for drinking and sharing good times with friends; but be warned the police are watching very closely so be careful. In fact, in Maryland, local and State Police are upping the anti by increasing DUI patrols the entire week for the sole purpose of nabbing intoxicated DUI/DWI Maryland drivers.

The police are armed with their statistics which reveal that St. Patrick’s Day celebrations increase the number of intoxicated drivers someplace in the area of four times what they see normally. The police indicate that nationwide there were 103 traffic fatalities on this holiday in 2009 with more than a third involving a driver with a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher.

The Maryland State Police continued that they made twice as many DUI arrests on St. Patrick’s day 2010 and the four days following the Holiday then they did the entire week before. Remember that a Maryland driver charged with DUI or DWI faces a fine up to $1,000.00, up to one year in jail for a first offense and 12 points on their driver’s license as well as a period of suspension from the MVA for driving with over .08 in the blood (BAC-blood alcohol content). If this eventuality happens, you must retain qualified DUI counsel ASAP to help deal with these potentially costly long term ramifications.

Things you might consider to help are taxi cabs (take extra money and do not spend it on beer) and Soberride is offering free rides home this Thursday and Friday. A designated driver who does not drink (yes this person actually must not drink anything) is always a good idea.

Funny DUI Thought for the day

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 13:48:34 -0500

A man and his wife were awakened at 3:00 am by a loud pounding on
the door. The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.

Not a chance,' says the husband, "'it is 3:00 in
the morning!' He slams the door and returns to bed.

Who was that?' asked his wife.
Just some drunk guy asking for a push, he answers.

'Did you help him?' she asks.
'No, I did not, it is 3:00 in the morning and it is pouring rain
out there!'

'Well, you have a short memory,' says his wife.
Can't you remember about three months ago when we broke down, and those two
guys helped us? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of
yourself!'

The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the
pounding rain.He calls out into the dark, 'Hello, are you still there?'

'Yes,' comes back the answer.
'Do you still need a push?' calls out the husband.

'Yes, please!' comes the reply from the dark.
'Where are you?' asks the husband..

'Over here on the swing,' replied the drunk.

Lack of Probable Cause

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:07:07 -0500

I recently read an article in The Aspen Times about a woman in Colorado that blew a .23 at following a DUI arrest but her case was thrown out at trial. Apparently this is news worthy in Aspen but in reality, it is not, it is just the law working the way it is supposed to. You see, in order to lawfully stop a citizen’s car, a police officer needs R.A.S. Reasonable Articulable Suspicion that a criminal or traffic offense is being committed. While this level of suspicion is low, (ie., it is not the normal criminal standard “beyond a reasonable doubt” which is a high standard) it still requires some “objective” proof on the part of the law enforcement officer “Leo”. That is to say, that LEO cannot just subjectively say, I don’t like this person’s looks so I’m going to pull them over, or he just crossed the white shoulder line for 3/10s of one second so I’m going to pull this person over for DUI. Those types of stops are not legal and a judge should suppress any evidence flowing from such an illegal stop. This is what the Judge determined in Aspen when he threw out all evidence flowing from the stop, but since the defendant blew a .23 this attracted people’s attention.
The truth is, the police can be overzealous in their attempt to bolster their DUI arrest numbers, echem, I mean, in their attempt to remove drunk drivers from the streets of Maryland and other states.

If nothing else, here is a deterrent for you

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 13:28:24 -0500

It seems in Reno there was a police sergeant that had a knack for not following the rules and for continually violating department policy without discipline from the department. Consequently it is alleged that this sergeant, in an DUI alcohol stop apparently sexually violated a 17 year old girl in the back of his cruiser during a 2006 traffic stop. Naturally, the police department is claiming no foul on their part and there guy did nothing wrong, but whoops, they fired their guy after an investigation. Boy, talk about your slippery slopes “well, our guy did nothing wrong but we thought we would fire him anyway”. The civil suit is in Federal District Court right now. According to the Court documents the cop placed the young girl in the back of his cruiser and pressured her to undress for his sexual gratification in order to avoid a drunk driving arrest. No word on whether she “beat” the charges or not.
Dubious cop behavior is not limited to the western United States, although admittedly the western part of the country seems to have more than its fair share of sexual debacles. Be that as it may, here in sunny Baltimore City, Maryland we recently relieved over 30 police officers of their official duties as they were engaging in a scheme to utilize tow trucks to tow cars involved in traffic matters, like DUIs or accidents, and then the cop would receive a kickback from the tow company of roughly $300. The tow truck company being used was not authorized by Baltimore City or Maryland to provide towing service. Apparently, some officers were making a tidy little some at this prank until the brass caught wind of it and now they are all fired or soon to be fired. Allegedly one officer made over $14,000 over two years. Now they are all without jobs-interesting carrier move there. More information on the situation is here.
Anyway, the point is we have the corrupt (some-not all) watching over the drunk or impaired. Generally speaking, not the best situation to be in. You see, the police will say they do not have quotas or numbers of DUI arrests to effectuate each month but, let’s just say, they do. Now, since it is the officer that has to make a very subjective decision about whether to arrest, and since his work product is partially evaluated on the number of arrests he makes, it is not the best position for Mr. nervous Joe Public to be in. Here is an example:

And the hits keep on coming...

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:36:52 -0500

So yesterday it was reported that some former MADD pain in the ass, chapter president out of the sunshine state (Florida) over indulged her (apparently strong) hidden desire for alcohol and was arrested prior to killing someone since it was alledged she was driving her car at a .23. Lets hope she is still in jail right now! Perhaps her brothers and sisters of the MADD organization could be arrested as well for being pompous and unfeeling to those that are affected by this insidious condition and put up a good fight every day.

Anyway, todays news is that the starlight Christina Aguilera was "detained" for being too drunk to care for herself. She apparently was a passenger in a car operated by her boyfriend, Matt Rutler when he was popped for swerving and driving erratically. The funny thing is, Christina was soooo drunk that the police could not even release her following the arrest of her boyfriend (which would be normal procedure) because she was allegedly too drunk to care for herself. Apparently, they set a $250 bail on her, not entirely sure why that was; but I can guess it was because they had to put up with her crap in a jail cell until she slept it off or until somebody came to claim her. I think it would be a perfect opportunity for her to practice the National Anthem.

The height of MADD hypocrisy- unreal!

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 09:50:46 -0500

Absolutely Unreal!

A former MADD chapter president was arrested on serious DUI charges in Florida on February 18, 2011. In some ways this is hard to believe but in others, it's not hard at all. The details of the arrest are here.
The thing about these self righteous, self glorified MADD folks is they think they walk on water. They believe they are somehow different then every other living person on this planet. Well here is a news flash, you are not different then the rest of us. You are human, you make mistakes and hopefully you try to rectify your mistakes like other humans and if you are lucky, maybe you won't be judged like you go around judging others every day.
You see when DUI lawyers are in court, it is our job to help defendants come to terms with the mistakes they have made regarding drinking and driving. The overwhelming majority of the folks are good people, with good jobs and good family life. Most are first time offenders. However, when we go to court to help these good people, many time we are met with judgmental members of MADD sitting in the court room, judging these folks as being bad people. MADD folks are in court trying to make defendants feel bad and trying to apply pressure to the real judge in the room in order to provoke a bad outcome for the defendant.
As a result of ongoing MADD presence and endless MADD diatribe in the news, DUI defendants, victims of an ambiguous legal system, can get a bad rap. Fortunately, many judges see this MADD CRAP and do the right thing despite their bullshit. Unfortunately, there are some judges and even some prosecutors that this lawyer deals with have lost their way and judge people way to harshly, essentially throwing rocks when they themselves live in glass houses. I was surprised to hear from my law enforcement friends that in some of the harshest jurisdictions in Maryland, the same judges that will not hesitate to screw a DUI defendant as hard as possible are the same judges that receive a ride home from law enforcement when they are stopped for drinking and driving. But I digress. . .
The point of this article is that it is not hard to believe that Debra Oberlin, a former president of MADD was arrested for DUI because she is human and humans do in fact make mistakes, get over MADD, find something else to do with your time other then harass good people!

Why should I retain your firm to defend me?

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 13:55:30 -0500

Funny thing happened to me while I was in DUI Court today. My client was facing a pending jail sentence so we went to Court to try to change that; we were successful and kept him out of jail. Another satisfied client; but, that is not the reason for this post. The reason for the post is one of Howard County's men in blue was present in the Court room and he asked where my blog articles were, the officer said "you have not posted anything in a while". I asked him, do you actually read what I post regarding DUI and drunk driving. He said "we do".

Wow! The police actually read what we have to say, that's great. Maybe it helps on all sides, maybe it helps get better behavior on both sides of the DUI equation. Maybe not, maybe it only helps them be tougher on the DWI Defendants. Either way, our goal here is to seek fairness on both sides of the DUI equation so Defendants can be treated fairly in Court. Unfortunately, there are many Courts in Maryland where a Defendant is guilty merely because s/he walked into the Courtroom.

That means, citizens should know their legal rights and utilize them as they see fit. That means, knowing that one does not have to do a field sobriety test at a DUI stop and knowing that anything they do can and will be used against them in Court. Knowing that right, and then electing to perform roadside gymnastics is totally up to the person. However, not being coerced into incriminating oneself is an important Constitutional Right that we all share.

Then comes that pesky breath machine. Do I blow? Do I not blow? I get asked that question everywhere I go. It's an important question which does not have a simple answer to fit all people. The answer changes based upon individual circumstances. However, it is refreshing that the police are required to advise you of your legal rights before asking a Defendant to make that important decision. You also have the right to communicate with an attorney prior to making that decision. Refreshingly, most police officers will let you exercise that right. Those that do not will suffer the consequences of that decision in Court.

What should the BAC legal limit be?

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:48:11 -0500

It's simple, the level should be zero. That way all drivers know not to drink if they are driving a car. Very simple and clear for all parties. Simple to enforce too.

The present system is the dumbest possible thing because it tells drivers they may in fact drink alcohol but they must know subjectively when to stop drinking, which gets harder to do once consumption has begun. Then people have two questions to answer, am I over the legal limit or not and will I get caught. If they do get caught, can it be beaten?

The easiest most clear cut and god forbid intelligent thing to do would be to make the limit zero, then everybody knows EXACTLY where they stand before turning the key.

But that would be way to easy and make too much sense for any US Government to employ. They would rather employ stupid mottos like over the "limit" (.08) under arrest which is not even remotely accurate or fair to the driving public as it is not an accurate reflection of the law. Thus we have a stupid subjective law (ie. The number changes over time and will continue to do so in the future) which the government itself does not know the ramifications to properly warn the motoring public.

What a ridiculously silly situation we find ourselves in; well, at least until somebody with a brain figures out this is not an effective way to save human life. It is stupid.

Firefighters, DUI and Video tape

Sat, 08 May 2010 13:39:56 -0500

We recently resolved a DUI arrest in Howard County against an aggressive State's Attorney who enjoys litigating every case s/he gets their hands on! This firefighter, a State employee who risks his life for the benefit of others was arrested on suspicion of DUI following a simple traffic infraction and field sobriety exercises performed on the street. The charging document had all the normal [magic] language in it (cut and pasted from some other charging document as the gender is wrong half the time in these documents) accusing the firefighter of driving drunk. There was the smell of alcohol, slurred speech and poor coordination on the fields, all the normal stuff that makes the prosecutor gitty as a school child and permits the judge to find the defendant guilty! Fortunately, the arrest was also videotaped so we could see everything that happened in "real time" [Jack Bauer time]

We order the video tape in our extensive discovery to see what really happened here because half the time the video and the cut and pasted statement of facts are in stark contrast to what really happened- starting from the gender description and going on from there [you would be surprised how many officers have difficulty telling a man from a woman in their statement of facts]. We receive the video and sit down and watch it with the client. We watched it again, and then a third time and aside from the video showing our client and his car being stopped, there is nothing in the video that supports what Mr. deputy police officer put in his statement of facts.

This is not the first time this travesty of justice has occurred, it happens with some regularity and its very unfortunate because judges and jurors listen intently to the exaggerations and lies of some law enforcement officers and are all too happy to convict unwitting defendants of DUI. I once had a case in Anne Arundel County that we got dismissed and I then proceeded to lecture the young arresting officer in the hallway about this type of crap and not to do it again lest he get in trouble and lose his job. Without the video tape as proof, there is sometimes little that can be done to protect the citizen against bogus trumped up charges. Most seasoned officers know what to write in their reports and how to testify in court and if there is no video tape, the cop has a high likelihood of winning and the Defendant and the people of this State loose. The citizens of Maryland loose because every Defendant who is wrongly convicted of DUI as a result of lies and exaggerations and sloppy police work is a threat to the liberty of all citizens in this State. You must remember, if this behavior can happen to them, it can easily happen to you on the way home from dinner with your spouse after a single glass of wine.

Did you know that the published legal limit for alcohol in Maryland is .08? Did you know that you can be arrested and convicted for DUI/DWI for blowing a .07, .06, .05 or lower? Bet you didn't know that; the Government doesn't publish this little tid-bit of information on their overhead roadsides on interstate 695, that but the police know it and this information helps their DUI arrest numbers and annual fiscal budget.