Drunk Driving and Double Jeopardy »

August 6, 2009

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Whenever a police officer arrest a person for DUI, he takes away his driver’s license and he give him a notice of "administrative suspension". He also gives him a citation to appear in court in order to face criminal drunk driving charges.

Usually these are  two very different procedures:

1. the administrative suspension that is held for driving with blood-alcohol of .08%, in most states this is administered by its department of motor vehicles, and
2. the criminal prosecution for the two separate offenses of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) and driving with .08%, and this takes place in the courts.

Explaining this in other words, even though the person who is convicted drove only once, but he is being prosecuted for two different crimes: DUI and driving with a .08% BAC. The possibility is that he can even be convicted of both offenses (although he can only be punished for one). How is that possible?

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Understanding Search and Seizure Law: What if a Search Violates the Fourth Amendment? »

July 9, 2009

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Here I am explaining you that in case if the search violates the fourth amendment than what could happen.

The Exclusionary Rule.

If, upon review, it has been found by the court that an unreasonable search has been occurred, then any evidence seized as a result of that search could not be allowed by the court to use as direct evidence against the defendant in a criminal prosecution, state or federal. This rule has been established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1961and it has come to be known as the “exclusionary rule.”

After this day, the exclusionary rule has been criticized by many commentators on the basis that it unfairly lets the criminal go free just because the constable has erred. But the supporter of the rule argued that excluding illegally seized evidence is necessary to restrict police from conducting illegal searches. According to this deterrence argument, if the resulting evidence can’t be used to convict the defendant then the improper searches won’t be conducted by police.

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