I Was Given A Ticket And Released With A Date To Appear In Court. What Do I Do?

Once you are given a ticket for a traffic violation, you have two options:

1. You can pay the ticket.
2. You can look at the ticket and take note of your court date. 

If you want to fight the ticket, you need to appear in court on that date and time, without fail. In most cases, if you want to defend against a ticket, you need the help of a traffic ticket defense lawyer, as a legal professional will how to work within the system and take action to assist you to avoid consequences.

As a traffic ticket will affect the cost of insurance, and if you already have points on your license, could lead to license suspension, many people choose to fight a traffic ticket, and hire an attorney to take charge of the situation, and the court appearance.

If you pay the ticket, you are admitting guilt. If you don't pay the ticket and then don't appear in court on your court date, eventually you can expect to be picked up on a warrant, which is not only expensive, it can be very embarrassing. In order to be freed from custody, you are forced to pay the ticket, which now costs more. Your mug shot will be posted online, and if someone searches your name, that image can be pulled up. These are all very real consequences.

You have the option of defending against the ticket, and avoiding all of these problems. Get in touch with a lawyer that knows the process and will take care of all of the details if you hope to avoid conviction. This can be extremely important in a DUI charge or other serious criminal traffic offense.

Connect with Jonathan Blecher, P.A., Miami lawyer, for more information about defending against traffic tickets.

Can someone be guilty of drunk driving in if they only had one drink?

Florida law no longer uses the term "drunk driving". If a person is driving with an unlawful blood/breath alcohol level over .08% they are presumed to be impaired by alcohol, and thus being "drunk" is not an issue. Additionally, if a person is driving under the influence of alcohol or a controlled/chemical substance to the extent that their normal faculties are impaired, they too could be convicted of DUI. So, there are really two ways to be convicted of DUI in Florida.

Generally, one drink will not yield a breath test result over a .08%, unless the drink was a 20 oz. Long Island Iced Tea (5 shots of liquor). However, every person has different levels of tolerance to alcohol. In that regard, while the breath test result won't be over the legal limit, the person's normal faculties may still be "impaired" by alcohol.

If you've been arrested for DUI, then you need to call my firm for tough representation.

Miami DUI Checkpoint - July 24, 2014

The City of Miami Police Department will be conducting a DUI Checkpoint tomorrow night (July 24, 2014) starting at 7:00 P.M. through 12:00 A.M. MPD will be saturating the Downtown Miami area surrounding Club Space, E11even and The Corner. 



The checkpoint will be set up at N.E. 1st Avenue and N.E. 10th Street, just west of Biscayne Boulevard and the American Airlines Arena.

Follow this LINK for more information about your rights at a DUI Checkpoint.

Anonymous Police Stops Being Reviewed By Supreme Court

Police can use Q-tip swabs to collect DNA and some DUI suspects are forced to give blood if they refuse, so it may surprise you to learn that any court has second thoughts about police pulling drivers over based on anonymous tips.

The Supreme Court is suspicious of police searches or seizures based on tips from anonymous callers. They have heard arguments dealing with that for the first time in a decade. Can police stop a driver based on nothing more than an anonymous tip that he or she was driving recklessly?

Navarette v. California, has Fourth Amendment considerations and serious implications in the road-rage era, particularly in South Florida where drivers scream obscenities at other drivers and could just as easily call 911 and say that driver is weaving all over the road. That scenario is precisely that what the court is going to wrestle with: Can such callers be trusted enough to justify a police stop?

The Navarette case began with a 911 call in California. An anonymous caller reported that a silver Ford pickup truck had just run her off the road. The dispatcher relayed that information to police, who soon spotted a silver Ford pickup with a license plate matching the one the caller had reported. Officers followed the pickup for a few minutes and didn't see any signs of reckless driving. They pulled the pickup over, finding Lorenzo and Jose Navarette and four large bags of marijuana.

The case is now before the Supreme Court, and their ruling may depend on how they choose to read its own decision in Florida v. J.L., a 2000 opinion in which the court ruled that police could not make a stop of a teenager (J.L.) based solely on an anonymous tip that he had a gun.

Justice Ginsburg explained that police have to have reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot before they can search a suspect. An anonymous tip, without more, doesn't amount to reasonable suspicion. She wrote that police have to corroborate the tip and they have to have reason to think the tip is "reliable in its assertion of illegality."

But, Justice Ginsburg left the door open to exceptions in other cases. She wrote, that "a report of a person carrying a bomb" might be a case where the danger is so great that police can stop and search a suspect based on a pure anonymous tip.

The Navarette case is just like J.L., in my opinion. Police should be required to corroborate the tip by following the driver and observing reckless driving. What's to stop an angry driver from taking out his rage by calling in a bogus tip?

The court's ruling is expected sometime in summer of 2014.