Taimoor Rana is seasoned criminal defense attorney specializing in DUI related cases. He shares his expert legal opinion here Penalties for Driving Drunk »
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- Since 1980, several new DUI laws have been formulated to deal with drunk driving. Many NGOs and special organizations like MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) have done a lot in this regard.
Some of these laws include ALR (Administrative License Revocation) and Zero tolerance laws which have been passed by the majority of states. ALR laws permits arresting officer to keep a driver’s license until he passes a breath test.
As the legal drinking age is 21 and legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limit is 0.08 % in almost all states, therefore Zero tolerance laws have been passed to restrict the adult drivers from having a considerable alcohol concentration in their blood. Other penalties like fine money, license suspension period and number of days behind the bars have also been increased to deal the menace.
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Cop Accused of Elaborate Scheme for Chicago DUI Arrests »
A news channel in Chicago recently showed footage of a surveillance video of a police officer accused of making fake DUI arrests.
There were a series of complaints against Officer Richard Fiorito, which lead his superiors to order him to use a video camera in his squad car. The footage from this camera has now caused the officer to be caused of making fake arrests. The video is now being used against Fiorito in a law suit involving 21 people who are accusing the officer of having a DUI scheme.
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“The Death Penalty for DUI” Is it Justified? »
Yes, here I am talking about the death penalty. In a drunk driving case. Here in United States. For murder…… No, that is not for an involuntary manslaughter. Not for vehicular homicide. Murder. And that is a first-degree murder. Likewise someone has pointed a gun at someone and pulled the trigger. MADD has achieved so much success in their political pressure campaigns that they’ve actually gotten some courts and legislatures to create a new type of crime which is referred to as “DUI murder”.
Just hold on for a minute, you say. I thought if you want to kill a person then you had to intend to kill him or her. You have to "premeditate" and such kinds of other things, right? Well, yes and no. Of course, each state is a little different, but most od the states follow similar laws. And by those laws generally a homicide ("the killing of another human being") has been broken into different categories. The first one is excusable homicide that is such a homicide where, due to the self-defense or other justification, the death is not considered as a crime. Next one is "manslaughter" — basically, which is considered as a killing but that is not murder. Usually there are two kinds of manslaughter: voluntary and involuntary.
Voluntary manslaughter is sometimes referred to as a killing in the "heat of passion"; means that you lacked the time or ability to reflect on the act.
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Drunk Driving and Double Jeopardy »
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:
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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
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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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Have a Close look at DUI Fatality Statistics »
The numbers of deaths on the highways caused by drunk drivers has justified the "DUI crackdown", along with the loss of constitutional rights. As it has been said by the U.S. Supreme Court in Michigan v. Sitz, for instance, DUI "sobriety checkpoints" seems to be violating our Fourth Amendment right to be free of suspicion less stops by the police but this illegal intrusion on our privacy is "outweighed" by the "carnage" on our highways of 25,000 deaths that occur due to drunk driving each year.
What is the source of these statistics? Several years ago, the statistics that had been kept on traffic fatalities by law enforcement agencies included a category for "alcohol-caused" deaths. However, these statistics were subtly changed to "alcohol-related" in order to justify such things as sobriety checkpoints, lowered blood alcohol levels and automatic at-the-scene DUI license suspensions. Here you must note that they changed it to “DUI related", but not “DUI caused”.
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Due Process and Automatic DUI License Suspensions »
So last night you were stopped by the cops and then they arrested you for drunk driving. And just after the Breathalyzer showed that the reading of a blood-alcohol level was .12%, the officer take away your driver’s license and gave you a piece of paper on which it was mentioned that your license was immediately suspended.
Here several questions comes in your mind that you might be wanted to ask, you may ask that what happened?. Are they allowed to do that? I thought I was believed to be innocent, and it is necessary for the state to prove my guilt that should be beyond a reasonable doubt before that they can punish me. And I remember something about "due process": Are they able to suspend my license for DUI before giving me a chance to defend myself?
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What is the DUI Exception to the Constitution? »
Here on this website we will tell you about the other side of the story….
For years we had hear about the “slaughter on the nation’s highways”, we have also read tragic stories of people dying as a result of fatal hit by drunk drivers.
Pressure groups such as MADD have gained wild success in fomenting public hysteria and, and no politician could ever had such courage to oppose them, they have been pushing through ever stricter DUI laws and most harsh punishments. As a result of all these things, we are given a repeated assurance that the number of “alcohol related” traffic fatalities have continued to decrease dramatically.
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