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.

Floating Under the Influence in Alaska

DUI laws around the country have been enforced against people riding golf carts, motorized bar stools, Zamboni ice cleaners and horses. Those cases have been prosecuted and won because the facts fell into some convoluted definition of "vehicle" or "conveyance" or "vessel". And, either a judge or jury bought the argument.

In Alaska - land of nature, wildlife, freedom and Sarah Palin - a man was arrested and charged for "driving under the influence of alcohol, floating in a raft on a river through Fairbanks". There are a few ways to look at these types of cases. First, does the object you are "in or on" constitute a vehicle? Second, could you really hurt yourself or someone else in it, even if your BAC was over the legal limit?

In Alaska, many people get around by boat and the waterways are an essential means of transportation. Their DUI statute reads:

"[a] person commits the crime of driving while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage, inhalant, or controlled substance if the person operates or drives a motor vehicle or operates an aircraft or a watercraft while under the influence of alcohol".

The law also goes on to define "operating a watercraft" as "navigate a vessel for means of transportation on water". Floating in a raft on a river is not "navigating", it's floating. If by navigating they want to include my hands used to steer my inflatable raft, then lock me up.

For more information about my firm Jonathan Blecher, P.A. and my qualifications, please visit my website www.duilawdefense.com.

Memorial Day "Urban Weekend" Arrests Down on Miami Beach

According to statistics from the Miami Beach Police Department, the total number of arrests on the Beach are nearly half of what they were during last year's "Urban Weekend". Sgt. Bobby Hernandez, a Miami Beach PD spokesman, thinks that a combination of education and community outreach to visitors as well a shift in police tactics are the main causes for the decrease.

Chilling Effect on Chilling for the Weekend

In past years, MBPD conducted "license plate checks", as seen above, on the causeways leading to and from the Beach, slowing down traffic and making it otherwise uncomfortable to get to the scene. This year's efforts included highly-visible CCTV cameras at main locations, and street-level ambassadors preaching chill. Combine that with the well-traveled word that troublemakers WILL get a skull-bashing and go to jail as well as a wild-west shootout on Washington Avenue in 2011 might have had something to do with it.

Here are the stats from the MBPD:

2014
Total Arrests: 191
Arrests by Race: 118 black males, 58 white males, 9 black females, 6 white females
Felony Arrests: 41
Felonies by Crime: 17 drugs, 15 "other felonies," 4 battery on a police officer, 2 aggravated battery, 1 aggravated assault, one robbery, 1 "CCF" - carrying a concealed firearm
Total Calls for Service: 1,685

2013
Total Arrests: 357
Arrests by Race: 207 black males, 108 white males, 23 black females, 19 white females
Felony Arrests: 65
Felonies by Crime: 3 aggravated assault, 4 CCF, 28 drugs, 6 battery on a PO, 24 "other felonies"
Total Calls for Service: 2,075

For more information about my firm Jonathan Blecher, P.A. and my qualifications, please visit my website www.duilawdefense.com.

Judge Threatens PD in Court - Then "Beats his Ass"

Brevard County (FL) Judge John Murphy was relieved of duty by the Chief Judge after Murphy picked a fight with a Public Defender in his courtroom - and carried it out into the hallway.

The Public Defender must have gotten pretty deep under the judge's skin to get the judge to tell him (from the bench) that "If I had a rock, I would throw it at you right now!" But there's more:

"You know I'm the public defender. I have a right to be here and I have a right to stand and represent my client," The PD, Andrew Weinstock said in the video of the incident

"If you want to fight, let's go out back and I'll just beat your ass," Murphy tells Weinstock before the two head out of the courtroom.

 

For more information about my firm Jonathan Blecher, P.A. and my qualifications, please visit my website www.duilawdefense.com.

Texas Judge Resigns: Caught Texting Prosecutor During DUI Trial

The legal deck is stacked against defendants and defense lawyers in DUI cases, we all know that. These days, "presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" is nothing more than a tag line at the end of COPS.

In DUI cases the prevailing prosecutorial mindset is that Defendants are guilty until the jury is tricked into a "not guilty" verdict. Plea bargains are squeezed out of defendants by prosecutors who load up on charges in order to get an agreement to plead guilty to DUI.

Recently, (former) Judge Elizabeth E. Coker of Texas signed an agreement with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to resign. Among other things, the complaint alleged that Judge Coker texted the prosecutor about specific questions to ask during the trial and how to refresh the recollection of a police witness.

Her efforts to help prosecutors obtain a guilty verdict in the case were lost on the wisdom of the jury, who found the defendant "NOT GUILTY".

In a similar incident, former Texas prosecutor and judge Ken Anderson pled guilty to intentionally failing to disclose evidence in a case that sent an innocent man to prison for murder. As a prosecutor, Anderson had evidence that could have cleared him. Anderson withheld the evidence and secured a murder conviction against the defendant. The wrongfully convicted defendant served 25 years in prison while Anderson went on to become a judge.

Add incidents like this to prosecutors who tell police officers how to testify, or who withhold evidence from the defense and you see what we are up against day after day.

For over 30 years, Miami DUI Attorney Jonathan Blecher has been defending DUI cases with positive results for his clients. For more information about my firm Jonathan Blecher, P.A. and my qualifications, please visit my website www.duilawdefense.com.