Florida DUI Lawyer Blog

Driving under the influence occurs when a person operates or is in actual physical control of a motor vehicle or similar device while that person is under the influence of alcohol and/or other intoxicating agents such that his or her faculties are impaired, according to Fort Lauderdale criminal attorney William Moore. In Florida and every other United States Jurisdiction, a driver is presumed to be impaired from alcohol if his or her blood or breath alcohol concentration exceeds a reading of 0.08 percent, where the breath reading represents total blood concentration. This is called the DUI per se statute, meaning that a person is automatically treated as impaired with a BAC at or in excess of 0.08 percent.

Broward DUI attorney Moore says that many clients come to him shocked that they have been arrested and charged with DUI when they were comfortably under the 0.08 BAC threshold that most Floridians assume they must meet in order to be charged with a crime. They are frequently surprised, then, to discover that they have been placed under arrest for DUI with a breathalyzer reading of 0.05 percent, 0.06 percent, or similar. These cases are surprisingly common, says Fort Lauderdale criminal defense lawyer Moore.

A driver can be arrested for DUI when his or her breath test reading shows a BAC under 0.08 percent if the law enforcement officer believes there is sufficient evidence to establish that the driver is impaired, even where the breath test yields relatively low results. The law enforcement official may ask the driver to submit to roadside field sobriety tests in order to gauge motor skills or other signs of impairment, says Fort Lauderdale DUI lawyer Moore.

If the police officer thinks that the driver seems impaired beyond the level of alcohol found in his or her system – such as a person who blows a 0.035 percent from the breath test but is stumbling over himself – the officer will likely request a blood or urine sample. Under certain circumstances, the law enforcement agency may actually force a blood draw, such as a DUI manslaughter case. By law, a person is required to provide breath, blood, and/or urine samphttp://www.wmdui.com/lawyer-attorney-1346857.htmlles when appropriate to determine if he or she is intoxicated. The additional testing may be conducted to determine if there are additional factors other than alcohol, such as Xanax, Ambien, cocaine, or other prescription or illegal drugs that may have caused additional impairment other than or in conjunction with the alcohol.

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Driving under the influence is a criminal charge virtually anyone can pick up, says Broward DUI lawyer William Moore. In fact, many people who come to his Fort Lauderdale office have never been previously arrested. Others come with multiple DUI arrests in the past. In either scenario, Fort Lauderdale DUI attorney Moore can provide outstanding legal representation in the local criminal justice system. Additionally, he handles other types of criminal defense cases and DUI with property damage or causing serious bodily injury. He also represents defendants in DUI manslaughter cases.

Simple driving under the influence often comes with related charges. However, several defenses are available, according to Fort Lauderdale DUI attorney Moore. For example, if the breath test machine was inaccurate or not properly calibrated, the law enforcement official did not have a valid reason to stop the vehicle in the first place, there was no breathalyzer test, the police officer did not properly administer the roadside field sobriety tests – all of these factors could have ramifications for the state’s case against you.

DUI causing property damage is a common charge after a person is involved in a car accident and the law enforcement officials responding to the scene suspect the driver is intoxicated (under the influence of drugs or alcohol). This can happen several ways: an accident with another car is one, particularly if the other vehicle sustains significant damage. Unfortunately, even a relatively minor car accident can result in hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of auto repair bills. Rear-ending a vehicle at a red light, side-swiping another car during freeway merging, making a left turn in front of oncoming traffic, and failing to yield can all cause accidents with notable damage. Of course, these accidents are not necessarily the fault of the driver who is accused of DUI. Alternatively, the accident could be a single-car accident involving public property, like a stop light or utility pole, or items on private property such as a mailbox or even a building or home.

DUI with serious bodily injury and DUI manslaughter are often charged when a driver is accused of being drunk and is involved in an accident in which people are hurt or killed. These cases are often very emotional for both the driver and his or her family as well as the victim and his or her loved ones. Experienced legal representation is key, as all of these are felonies and can result in lengthy prison sentences upon conviction.

According to Broward DUI attorney William Moore, the legal drinking age has been a point of contention in south Florida and elsewhere for decades. After Prohibition was repealed, many states set the legal drinking age at 21, which was largely perceived as the time that young people truly entered adulthood. Only citizens aged 21 and over could vote at that time, says Fort Lauderdale DUI lawyer Moore. During the Vietnam War, however, young activist shed light on apparent discrepancies: at age 18, a man could be conscripted into military service, yet could not purchase a beer or even vote for representatives who made the decisions about his fate in the war.

Drinking ages varied and states adopted unique statutory schemes. Oklahoma, for example, had a lower drinking age for women than men, because state legislatures believed that young ladies were less apt to engage in youthful antics fueled by alcohol consumption compared to men the same age. Other states set differing ages for consumption of wine and beer versus hard liquor, or even consumption of alcohol at a restaurant or bar as opposed to off the premises. In most cases, the ages varied between 18 and 20.

In the early 1980s, the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving formed and quickly became a large and influential lobbying group. MADD and like-minded organizations waged a nationwide campaign to raise the drinking age to 21 years. The campaign was extremely successful; Wyoming, the last state to “give in,” raised its legal drinking age in 1988, succumbing to federal pressure applied with strings attached to highway funding. Since that time, all fifty U.S. states have maintained a uniform legal drinking age.

Now, Fort Lauderdale DUI attorney Moore says that driving under the influence of alcohol or other substances is punished more harshly for drivers who are under the legal drinking age in the state of Florida. Drivers under the age of 21 can be convicted of DUI with a blood alcohol concentration of just 0.02 percent, or the equivalent, for many drivers, of just one drink before getting behind the wheel. Drivers who are over the legal drinking age can be convicted if they have a BAC at or exceeding 0.08 percent, although a driver can also be arrested for DUI if she seems impaired – even if her BAC is lower than the “legal limit.”

The following video is neither produced nor endorsed by William Moore, P.A.:

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Jim Leyritz, the former Yankees baseball player, is out of jail as he awaits a September trial for DUI Manslaughter. According to law enforcement officials, Leyritz and the driver of the vehicle with which his own collided were both intoxicated, says Fort Lauderdale DUI lawyer William Moore. The accident occurred late at night, as the female driver, a 30-year-old mother, was driving home from her bartending job at a local steakhouse. She died as a result of the accident. Witnesses told police investigators that Leyritz ran the red light, causing the car crash. Leyritz has consistently disputed that the accident was his fault, pointing to the victim’s driving record and her previous instances of driving under the influence of alcohol. In fact, forensic evidence seriously complicates the case: the victim’s blood alcohol concentration, like Leyritz’s, was apparently in excess of the 0.08 percent level at which impairment is presumed by Florida law. The victim’s BAC was actually notably higher than Leyritz’s, the investigation concluded.

Since the accident in December 2007, Leyritz has reportedly obsessed over the details of the accident, withdrawn from the community, stopped his charity work, and run out of money. Now out on bond, he is forbidden from consuming alcoholic beverages and, although he is currently allowed to drive, he can do so only with an ignition interlock device attached to his vehicle. The device, which is frequently used on the cars of DUI suspects and DUI offenders, requires Leyritz to blow into it in order to start his car. Ignition interlock devices have been particularly lauded by Mothers Against Drunk Driving and similar groups, which believe that widespread use of the devices could stamp out drunk driving entirely. Broward DUI attorney Moore, however, believes there is a significant problem with their usage: they are not always accurate, as Leyritz’s recent experiences have demonstrated.

Last month, Leyritz tried to start his car to leave the home of his former wife, with whom he shares custody of their three boys. He blew into the ignition interlock device, which registered a reading indicating that he had been consuming alcohol. Leyritz, who had not been drinking, became distraught. A second try yielded the result he was looking for, but the damage was done: the device notifies authorities that the car’s owner has been consuming alcohol.
Leyritz was eventually cleared. He submitted two separate urine samples, both of which confirmed what he already professed: he had not been drinking. The ignition interlock device apparently malfunctioned. Fort Lauderdale DUI attorney Moore believes that this is a serious problem. Leyritz’s case was publicized due to his fame – but how often does this situation occur, where an ignition interlock device or a breathalyzer incorrectly points the finger at someone who is innocent? In a state like Florida, where a person can be convicted of DUI just on the basis of the breath test reading, the possibility is frightening.

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The criminal justice system can be scary for anyone, but this is often particularly true for DUI defendants. Many, although certainly not all, DUI suspects do not have a prior criminal record. The sage advice of an experienced Broward DUI attorney can help a motorist accused of driving under the influence of alcohol, cocaine, or other substances achieve the best possible resolution to his or her case.

In the United States, many people take it for granted that if they are accused of committing a crime, they will not have to face a criminal court alone or unaided by legal counsel. The Constitution recognizes a right to have counsel when criminal proceedings have begun against a person. Additionally, the famous Miranda warning advises suspects that they have the right to speak with an attorney if they so choose prior to being interrogated by police. Criminal suspects also have the right to remain silent and not to provide any information. In any case, information derived from interrogations which occurred prior to the reading of the Miranda warning is often not admissible in a courtroom. The Constitution also provides that defendants have the right to a fair, speedy, and in the vast majority of cases public trial.

Defendants who are charged with felonies and misdemeanors in Florida have the right to counsel. Indigent individuals will be assigned a public defender, although defendants only qualify for those services if they make less than twice the amount of the federal poverty guidelines listed for their family size. For reference, a single person is impoverished if he makes less than $10,830 in income each year, and eligible for public defense services if he makes less than $21,660.

All other defendants should bring a private Fort Lauderdale DUI lawyer and many indigent clients still elect to hire a private attorney. The right to counsel attaches in all cases in which time in jail or prison is a possibility. In some very minor misdemeanor cases, the prosecutor can certify that she will not seek any time in jail, an unusual step. In most instances, being represented by an attorney allows a professional who is familiar with court procedure to advance sophisticated legal arguments on your behalf in a way a layperson is unable to do.

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Ignition interlock devices are frequently installed on the vehicles of DUI offenders, says Palm Beach DUI Lawyer Andrew Alitowski. The devices contain a small breath test component, which requires the driver to breath into it before starting the car. Often, the driver must breathe into it a few minutes later as well, or even periodically the entire time the vehicle is being driven. This feature is designed to prevent a driver from drinking a lot of alcohol, then immediately getting behind the wheel before it has absorbed into the system. It is supposed to be a check to prevent a DUI offender from committing another offense, according to Palm Beach DUI lawyer Alitowski. Proponents insist that the devices prevent DUIs from ever even occurring. Although the position makes sense intuitively, new information is surfacing that may demonstrate that the devices are surprisingly ineffective at preventing DUIs. The question remains, then: are ignition interlock devices actually effective at preventing second, third, or subsequent DUIs?

First, there are the typical problems associated with any breath test (breathalyzer) device. They may not completely compensate for the rate of absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream. They can give false positives. Breathalyzers may incorrectly identify a foreign substance as alcohol, when it is something else entirely. Women or those with smaller lung capacities may appear to have a different concentration of alcohol in their breath than they really do, because the machines are calibrated for the lung capacity a “typical” person would have.

In addition to all of those problems that all breathalyzers have, there is new evidence to show that the ignition interlock devices do not prevent additional DUIs. In 2005, the California Department of Motor Vehicles made its report to the state legislature on the devices. Its findings showed that the expected result, which would be fewer subsequent DUI arrests for those who had the device installed, “was not observed.” In fact, the risk of a subsequent motor vehicle accident was 84 percent higher in those who had installed the device versus those who had not. The results “clearly show that IIDs are not effective in reducing DUI convictions” and that there is “no evidence” that the devices work.

Who is pushing for their continued use? Mothers Against Drunk Driving has long been a proponent of ignition interlocks. The companies the devices even lobby state legislatures – and their business incentive to do so is readily apparent.

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Broward DUI attorney William Moore has been reading up on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court by President Obama yesterday. Judge Sotomayor was originally appointed to the federal bench by President Bush in 1992 and elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1998 by President Clinton. At only 54, she has more years of experience as a federal judge than any of the current Justices possessed at the time of their nominations. Still, Fort Lauderdale DUI lawyer Moore has been looking into her record on criminal cases and especially driving under the influence.

Judge Sotomayor has ruled on just a single case with DUI ramifications. She heard a case dealing with the New York City ordinance that allowed the police department to impound vehicles driven by DUI suspects because they were used during a crime. The owners of the vehicles were not, however, allowed an opportunity to challenge the impounding of their motor vehicles for long periods of time, sometimes as long as one year after the car was taken. This is true even when the driving under the influence charge was dropped entirely or reduced to a lesser charge, such as reckless driving. Broward DUI attorney Moore believes this law created significant problems for defendants and their families. The suspects who challenged the law’s constitutionality all cited the hardships that were a direct result of the long-term impoundment of their vehicles: inability for an elderly couple to get to medical appointments; serious difficulty getting to work or maintaining employment; inability to take a grandchild to and from school; and a suspect’s inability to visit her mentally ill daughter who resided in a neighboring state. Additionally, suspects frequently had to continue meeting their car payment obligations, although they did not have any use of the vehicle for long periods of time.

New York City argued that the procedure was necessary to protect the public safety, a rationale correctly rejected by Judge Sotomayor. The city did not prevent people who had been arrested for driving under the influence from driving vehicles belonging to other people or even other vehicles they already owned – only the ones driven at the time of the arrest. The real issues of the case, however, were seizure of property and due process. As a constitutional matter and in keeping with a long line of Supreme Court decisions, Judge Sotomayor determined that the city must have a reasonably fast opportunity for a judge to review the impoundment.

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