Tim Cutis, The Deputy Director for Desoto County Emergency Services says they’re pushing for this after seeing cases where hurt drunk drivers go to the hospital, then walk out before getting a blood test leading them to walk free of any charges. “We’ve been trying to get this corrected for several years.”

He says one law allows paramedics to draw blood for prosecution, but another one says they can’t, “And those guidelines say that we cannot draw blood except for diagnostic use by the lab at the hospital, so the laws conflict with one another.”

Even though police can already do it, he and other Desoto county leaders want the law changed to allow paramedics to take blood at the scene of a drunk driving accident.

North West Mississippi is the only area of the state that is affected by this because they don’t have a trauma center.

Curtis says when someone is seriously hurt in a drunk driving accident they have to cross state lines to transport patients to the Med.

He says it makes it harder to get blood samples, “An officer from Mississippi cannot mandate that a doctor or a nurse in Tennessee draw for use of prosecution.”

Attorney Jim Franks says in his 30 years of defending accused drunk drivers he’s never seen someone walk free because they didn’t have a blood test. And, he says every time a new law takes effect it’s another defense for him, “The smartest thing the legislature could do is leave the DUI law alone because the defenses are settled we know what we can do and what we can’t do… every time change creates a problem for law enforcement.”

Source: Fox News

The 44-year-old Federal Way, Wash., man is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in King County District Court in Seattle.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports this is the fifth DUI arrest in Washington for Rogers, who killed three teens in a DUI crash two decades ago in Michigan when he was with the Lions.

Court papers say Rogers was belligerent with state troopers last Wednesday and called one “Coach James” in reference to former University of Washington coach Don James. Rogers fell asleep on the way to the Tukwila Police Department where he refused to take a breath test.

Source: Chicago Tribune

The drop may be attributed to more Arizonans obeying the state’s DUI laws, but having fewer officers on the street to enforce the laws because of budget cuts also may have played a role.

Police arrested 118 people for DUI-related offenses this year as part of the state’s annual holiday drunken-driving task force, compared with 218 drivers arrested by task-force members during the Thanksgiving weekend in 2007.

The task force arrested 11 drivers with prior DUI convictions, 20 drivers accused of extreme DUI and 12 accused of underage DUI.

But those numbers aren’t as promising as they seem at first glance. The task force had 128 fewer officers participating this year, resulting in 847 fewer stops overall and 456 fewer citations for non-DUI offenses.

Arizona Department of Public Safety officers, in a separate effort, arrested 159 drivers suspected of driving under the influence on highways around the state, a total that also falls short of the 170 motorists DPS officers picked up during the same time period in 2007.

But the declining number of DUI cases mirrors a national trend that has played out over the past two decades, which have shown steady declines in the number of drunken drivers. A combination of factors, including education campaigns, an increasing number of female drivers (males are more likely to drive drunk) and the proliferation of tougher DUI laws in states around the country are thought to be driving the downward trend.

The dwindling number of DUI arrests is still no reason to celebrate: Drunken drivers still accounted for more than 30 percent of auto fatalities, taking the lives of more than 300 on Arizona’s streets and highways in 2007.

A high number of fatalities was one reason that Arizona lawmakers enacted a DUI law that’s touted as being among the toughest in the nation.

The law, which took effect in September 2007, requires first-time offenders to have an ignition-locking device installed in their cars for a year. The device typically costs about $100 to install and $80 per month to maintain. Another aspect of the law provides a minimum 45-day jail stay for drivers convicted with a blood-alcohol level of 0.20 percent or higher.

Though it’s too early for any statistical analysis to gauge the statute’s effectiveness, Michael Hegarty, deputy director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, said the laws are having a deterrent effect.

“A lot of people are saying, ‘I’m not going to drive drunk because I don’t want to have to blow into that machine every time I drive for the next 12 months,’ ” Hegarty said.

As promising as the early results are, economic factors could continue to artificially drive down the number of drunken drivers police apprehend this holiday season.

East Valley agencies didn’t participate in the DUI task force over the Thanksgiving weekend, Hegarty said, because, in the face of budget cuts, many agencies didn’t have the officers to devote to DUI enforcements.

Though the agencies are given grant money to fund holiday DUI enforcement, police departments have to fulfill obligations to patrol their communities, too, Hegarty said.

“I think it’ll probably even out but everyone’s struggling with resources, which includes financial, and a lot of it, too, is manpower,” he said. “Do they have enough officers out there to do their regular patrols and do this enforcement?”

Source: AZ Central

The National Transportation Safety Board said the Ocean State is one of the least pro-active states in preventing alcohol-related crashes. State Senator Leonidas Raptakis is now proposing three new penalties in a DUI law.

He said anyone suspected of DUI should have their vehicle impounded for 90 days, and he’d double the period of time a driver’s history can be examined from five years to ten years.

Penalties would also be increased for those convicted of hurting others while driving drunk.

Source: WPRI News

Source: WCTV

Be aware that DUI laws in some states require people to forfeit their vehicles, especially in the case of a repeat offender. A second-time DUI offender in Tennessee, for example, may have his or her car seized by the state.

Source: The Street

Police ended up arresting two people on suspicion of driving under the influence, one person for possession of marijuana, three for driving with a suspended or revoked driver’s license, and one for not having a license. More than a dozen others were given tickets for various violations, police said.

The checkpoint is one of several police will conduct in the coming months, thanks to a grant from the state’s Office of Traffic Safety. Police are scheduled to conduct another checkpoint in December, officials said.

— Joseph Serna

Source: Daily Pilot

Looking for a California DUI Attorney?

Of those arrests, 13 were aggravated or felony DUIs, and 12 involved those under 21. The average blood alcohol content was .139, according to Dan Mulleneaux, program coordinator for the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety. Drivers are cited for having a BAC of .08 or greater.

The DUI Task Force is comprised of various East Valley law enforcement agencies and will stage DUI checkpoints through Dec. 31, Mulleneaux said.

Source:East Valley Tribune

He’s strategizing.

Speaking to the annual conference of Ontario’s Criminal Lawyers’ Association, Bentley suggested he’s laying the political groundwork before asking cabinet colleagues to approve millions more in legal aid funding and won’t strike until the moment is right.

“I have been preparing for my time carefully,” said Bentley, a former defence lawyer.

“We (want to) make sure that when the ‘ask’ is made, it stands to bring … some success.”

His remarks come on the heels of a provincial report released Friday that linked an eroding legal aid tariff to the problem of complex criminal trials spinning out of control.

It recommended a new system of “enhanced” legal aid fees for these cases, to entice experienced lawyers with the skills to keep trials focused back into doing the work. They currently earn $92 an hour.

But it was more lion’s den than homecoming for Bentley when audience members took to the microphone.

Ottawa criminal lawyer Mark Ertel pointed to another provincial report from earlier this year that said Ontario’s defence bar has “palpable” anger over a legal aid tariff it considers grossly inadequate.

“I’d like to think of (us) as more frustrated – frustrated like Pavlov’s dogs were when they pressed the food lever and no food came out,” he told Bentley.

“What we would like is not for you to come here and say we have to wait for `the big ask,’” Ertel said. “What we would like is for you, as attorney general, to come here and say the legal aid plan is broken.”

With nothing likely to happen soon, Bentley appealed yesterday to the nobler human instincts of the hundreds of lawyers gathered at a downtown hotel and their shared history as defence counsel, urging patience and encouraging them to remember that legal aid work isn’t about money.

“I worked on legal aid cases every single day I was working as a defence lawyer,” he said. “Long after they didn’t make any money, I still worked on them. I worked on them because it’s the right thing to do.”

Without legal aid “anonymous, nameless people would never have access to justice,” Bentley said.
Source

Morris News Service in Atlanta reported late last week there has been a drop in drunk-driving deaths in the past two years in our state. That drop is primarily attributed to increased crackdown by law enforcement and stiffer drunk driving laws in our state that mandate tougher penalties for drunk driving.

The Morris News report also talked to Mothers Against Drunk Driving officials who say they will be lobbying for even tougher DUI laws in our state when the General Assembly convenes in Atlanta in January.

MADD will push for lawmakers to require DUI offenders to have ignition interlock devices — an electronic gadget that keeps a car from starting unless the driver’s breath is alcohol-free — installed on their vehicles after their first DUI conviction.

Judges currently can require two-time DUI offenders to use the ignition interlocks.

The Morris News report pointed out New Mexico was the first state to enact the ignition interlocks law to first-time offenders. MADD says since New Mexico took that step alcohol-related traffic fatalities have declined 20 percent in the state.

While Georgia’s alcohol-related deaths have declined, that decline was 3 percent — a small amount compared to a decline of 20 percent.

We think it would be wise for our lawmakers to listen to MADD when it makes its pitch for interlock devices in the upcoming legislative session.

Source