Mistakes Defendants Make
The 10 biggest mistakes most people make after being arrested for a DWI in Texas, and how to avoid them:
Not taking the matter seriously. This is a charge that will follow you for the rest of your life, if you are convicted. The additional insurance charges alone could cost you thousands of dollars.
Not hiring an attorney. The law is complex and you need competent representation. You must raise the right defenses at the right time or you will lose them. Facts will disappear, memories fade and witnesses vanish. A winable case can quickly become a loser.
Hiring an attorney based on the amount of the fee alone. The State of Texas has almost unlimited resources when it comes to your case. You need to hire an attorney and pay a fee which will allow him to put time and effort into your case to counter the prosecution. Attorneys must earn enough in the time they spend on your case in order to keep their doors open and make a living wage. If you go too low, your attorney will not be able to put in the time necessary to protect you. Look for a reasonable, predictable fee, not the lowest.
Not complying with driver’s license laws. You could lose your right to drive.
Driving after your license has been taken away.
Not taking full advantage of your constitutional rights.
Taking the prosecutor’s first offer. The first offer is not a bargain, it’s just to get rid of your case with the least amount of work. Very few cases are dismissed or reduced to a non-alcohol charge at this stage. You do not give the judge an opportunity to rule on constitutional challenges. You give up your right to raise these issues and make the State prove it’s case.
Fail to appear in Court. The Court will issue a bench warrant for your arrest and revoke any bond. The next time you are stopped for a traffic infraction, you will be spending some time in jail and posting a bond for your future appearances.
Talk to anyone but an attorney about your case. Anything you say to them can be used against you.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Alisha Abdullah, é racer da bicicleta da mulher de India o único, que zumbe após homens na trilha!
Não tem stormed meramente um bastion masculino mas Alisha Abdullah tem competido realmente após seus concorrentes masculinos em sua bicicleta four-stroke de 115 centímetros cúbicos.
Esta menina da faculdade de 17-year-old Chennai é o único racer da bicicleta da mulher no circuito atual. Teve alguns revestimentos do podium nos championships competindo de UCAL Rolon em Chennai e em Coimbatore
_ Alisha est leaving para malaysia curto para um semana treinamento sob anterior racer Barry Leong, um prelude ela entrada FIM championships, est held Indonésia, malaysia e China. _
Competindo funcionamentos na família de Abdullah. O pai de Alisha`s era um campeão nacional do motorbike de sete vezes. O único disjuntor da velocidade a esta carreira emocionante é a falta completa do sponsorship. Mas para a sustentação agora parental é justa sobre bastantes ajudar a sua perseguição sua paixão em sua bicicleta. Uma menina nova feisty, Alisha Abdullah de Chennai, India, é uma das fêmeas as mais novas no motorsport no país. Compete regularmente motocicletas. Um cavaleiro que awesome é... você começou-se uma senhora do ventilador! Nós necessitamos mais meninas como ela que faz exame a competir bicicletas
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
DWI Laws are Out of Control
When Pennsylvanian Keith Emerich went to the hospital recently for an irregular heartbeat, he told his doctor he was a heavy drinker: a six-pack per day. Later, Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation sent Emerich a letter. His driver’s license had been revoked. If Emerich wanted it back, he’d need to prove to Pennsylvania authorities that he was competent to drive. His doctor had turned him in, as required by state law.
The Pennsylvania law is old (it dates back to the 1960s), but it’s hardly unusual. Courts and lawmakers have stripped DWI defendants of the presumption of innocence - along with several other common criminal justice protections we afford to the likes of accused rapists, murderers and pedophiles.
In the 1990 case Michigan v. Sitz, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the magnitude of the drunken driving problem outweighed the “slight” intrusion into motorists’ protections against unreasonable search effected by roadblock sobriety checkpoints. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Rehnquist ruled that the 25,000 roadway deaths due to alcohol were reason enough to set aside the Fourth Amendment.
The problem is that the 25,000 number was awfully misleading. It included any highway fatality in which alcohol was in any way involved: a sober motorist striking an intoxicated pedestrian, for example.
It’s a number that’s still used today. In 2002, the Los Angeles Times examined accident data and estimated that in the previous year, of the 18,000 “alcohol-related” traffic fatalities drunk driving activists cited the year before, only about 5,000 involved a drunk driver taking the life of a sober driver, pedestrian, or passenger.
Unfortunately, courts and legislatures still regularly cite the inflated “alcohol-related” number when justifying new laws that chip away at our civil liberties.
For example, the Supreme Court has ruled that states may legislate away a motorist’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. In 2002, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin ruled that police officers could forcibly extract blood from anyone suspected of drunk driving. Other courts have ruled that prosecutors aren’t obligated to provide defendants with blood or breath test samples for independent testing (even though both are feasible and relatively cheap to do). In almost every other facet of criminal law, defendants are given access to the evidence against them.
These decisions haven’t gone unnoticed in state legislatures. Forty-one states now reserve the right to revoke drunken driving defendants’ licenses before they’re ever brought to trial. Thirty-seven states now impose harsher penalties on motorists who refuse to take roadside sobriety tests than on those who take them and fail. Seventeen states have laws denying drunk driving defendants the same opportunities to plea bargain given to those accused of violent crimes.
Until recently, New York City cops could seize the cars of first-offender drunk driving suspects upon arrest. Those acquitted or otherwise cleared of charges were still required to file civil suits to get their cars back, which typically cost thousands of dollars. The city of Los Angeles still seizes the cars of suspected first-time drunk drivers, as well as the cars of those suspected of drug activity and soliciting prostitutes.
Newer laws are even worse. As of last month, Washington State now requires anyone arrested (not convicted — arrested) for drunken driving to install an “ignition interlock” device, which forces the driver to blow into a breath test tube before starting the car, and at regular intervals while driving. A second law mandates that juries hear all drunken driving cases. It then instructs juries to consider the evidence “in a light most favorable to the prosecution,” absurd evidentiary standard at odds with everything the American criminal justice system is supposed to stand for.
Even scarier are the laws that didn’t pass, but will inevitably be introduced again. New Mexico’s state legislature nearly passed a law that would mandate ignition interlock devices on every car sold in the state beginning in 2008, regardless of the buyer’s driving record. Drivers would have been required to pass a breath test to start the car, then again every 10 minutes while driving. Car computer systems would have kept records of the tests, which would have been downloaded at service centers and sent to law enforcement officials for evaluation. New York considered a similar law.
That isn’t to say we ought to ease up on drunken drivers. But our laws should be grounded in sound science and the presumption of innocence, not in hysteria. They should target repeat offenders and severely impaired drunks, not social drinkers who straddle the legal threshold. Though the threat of drunken driving has significantly diminished over the last 20 years, it’s still routinely overstated by anti-alcohol activists and lawmakers. Even if the threat were as severe as it’s often portrayed, casting aside basic criminal protections and civil liberties is the wrong way to address it.
The Pennsylvania law is old (it dates back to the 1960s), but it’s hardly unusual. Courts and lawmakers have stripped DWI defendants of the presumption of innocence - along with several other common criminal justice protections we afford to the likes of accused rapists, murderers and pedophiles.
In the 1990 case Michigan v. Sitz, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the magnitude of the drunken driving problem outweighed the “slight” intrusion into motorists’ protections against unreasonable search effected by roadblock sobriety checkpoints. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Rehnquist ruled that the 25,000 roadway deaths due to alcohol were reason enough to set aside the Fourth Amendment.
The problem is that the 25,000 number was awfully misleading. It included any highway fatality in which alcohol was in any way involved: a sober motorist striking an intoxicated pedestrian, for example.
It’s a number that’s still used today. In 2002, the Los Angeles Times examined accident data and estimated that in the previous year, of the 18,000 “alcohol-related” traffic fatalities drunk driving activists cited the year before, only about 5,000 involved a drunk driver taking the life of a sober driver, pedestrian, or passenger.
Unfortunately, courts and legislatures still regularly cite the inflated “alcohol-related” number when justifying new laws that chip away at our civil liberties.
For example, the Supreme Court has ruled that states may legislate away a motorist’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. In 2002, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin ruled that police officers could forcibly extract blood from anyone suspected of drunk driving. Other courts have ruled that prosecutors aren’t obligated to provide defendants with blood or breath test samples for independent testing (even though both are feasible and relatively cheap to do). In almost every other facet of criminal law, defendants are given access to the evidence against them.
These decisions haven’t gone unnoticed in state legislatures. Forty-one states now reserve the right to revoke drunken driving defendants’ licenses before they’re ever brought to trial. Thirty-seven states now impose harsher penalties on motorists who refuse to take roadside sobriety tests than on those who take them and fail. Seventeen states have laws denying drunk driving defendants the same opportunities to plea bargain given to those accused of violent crimes.
Until recently, New York City cops could seize the cars of first-offender drunk driving suspects upon arrest. Those acquitted or otherwise cleared of charges were still required to file civil suits to get their cars back, which typically cost thousands of dollars. The city of Los Angeles still seizes the cars of suspected first-time drunk drivers, as well as the cars of those suspected of drug activity and soliciting prostitutes.
Newer laws are even worse. As of last month, Washington State now requires anyone arrested (not convicted — arrested) for drunken driving to install an “ignition interlock” device, which forces the driver to blow into a breath test tube before starting the car, and at regular intervals while driving. A second law mandates that juries hear all drunken driving cases. It then instructs juries to consider the evidence “in a light most favorable to the prosecution,” absurd evidentiary standard at odds with everything the American criminal justice system is supposed to stand for.
Even scarier are the laws that didn’t pass, but will inevitably be introduced again. New Mexico’s state legislature nearly passed a law that would mandate ignition interlock devices on every car sold in the state beginning in 2008, regardless of the buyer’s driving record. Drivers would have been required to pass a breath test to start the car, then again every 10 minutes while driving. Car computer systems would have kept records of the tests, which would have been downloaded at service centers and sent to law enforcement officials for evaluation. New York considered a similar law.
That isn’t to say we ought to ease up on drunken drivers. But our laws should be grounded in sound science and the presumption of innocence, not in hysteria. They should target repeat offenders and severely impaired drunks, not social drinkers who straddle the legal threshold. Though the threat of drunken driving has significantly diminished over the last 20 years, it’s still routinely overstated by anti-alcohol activists and lawmakers. Even if the threat were as severe as it’s often portrayed, casting aside basic criminal protections and civil liberties is the wrong way to address it.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
DWI Enforcement Team
Motorists who drink and drive are involved in approximately 50% of fatal collisions and an equal percentage of serious injury collisions. After 2 a.m., it is estimated that two of every four motorists on the road are driving under the influence of alcohol. These disturbing statistics reflect a dangerous trend on our roads that the Austin Police Department is determined to reverse.
To increase enforcement of DWI laws and send a message to motorists who drink and drive, APD launched the DWI Enforcement Team in August 1998. The unit, which is under direction of the Traffic Administration Section, is comprised of eight patrol officers and one sergeant. As a dedicated DWI enforcement unit, the Enforcement Team is able to concentrate its patrol efforts on apprehending drunk drivers. Patrols focus on areas where DWI offenses are most likely to occur (entertainment areas featuring bars and nightclubs, for example) during times when most drunk drivers are on the roads (evenings, weekends and holidays). In addition, members of the Enforcement Team are able to provide support to regular patrol officers during peak offense times, relieving patrol officers by handling the lengthy processing of arrests.
The working relationship between regular patrol and the Enforcement Team increases the efficiency of the Department as a whole in removing drunk drivers from our roads. First, the Enforcement Team increases the number of patrol units on the streets, making apprehension of DWI offenders more likely. At the same time, regular patrol officers who make DWI arrests are able to turn suspects over to the Enforcement Team for processing through the system, allowing them to resume patrol duties and apprehend other DWI offenders. As a result, both the numbers of Enforcement Team and regular patrol DWI arrests have increased.
Motorists who drink and drive are involved in approximately 50% of fatal collisions and an equal percentage of serious injury collisions. After 2 a.m., it is estimated that two of every four motorists on the road are driving under the influence of alcohol. These disturbing statistics reflect a dangerous trend on our roads that the Austin Police Department is determined to reverse.
To increase enforcement of DWI laws and send a message to motorists who drink and drive, APD launched the DWI Enforcement Team in August 1998. The unit, which is under direction of the Traffic Administration Section, is comprised of eight patrol officers and one sergeant. As a dedicated DWI enforcement unit, the Enforcement Team is able to concentrate its patrol efforts on apprehending drunk drivers. Patrols focus on areas where DWI offenses are most likely to occur (entertainment areas featuring bars and nightclubs, for example) during times when most drunk drivers are on the roads (evenings, weekends and holidays). In addition, members of the Enforcement Team are able to provide support to regular patrol officers during peak offense times, relieving patrol officers by handling the lengthy processing of arrests.
The working relationship between regular patrol and the Enforcement Team increases the efficiency of the Department as a whole in removing drunk drivers from our roads. First, the Enforcement Team increases the number of patrol units on the streets, making apprehension of DWI offenders more likely. At the same time, regular patrol officers who make DWI arrests are able to turn suspects over to the Enforcement Team for processing through the system, allowing them to resume patrol duties and apprehend other DWI offenders. As a result, both the numbers of Enforcement Team and regular patrol DWI arrests have increased.
When you have been investigated or arrested for any criminal offense such as Driving While Intoxicated (DWI), or any Felony Charge, you have an absolute right to be concerned. Facing criminal charges may be one of the most frightening things you have encountered. Some of the possible consequences that can result from a Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) conviction include the restriction or loss of a driver’s license, an increase in insurance costs, fines, court costs, and even the possibility of jail. As you can see, Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) can be a very serious charge.
The law says that the County Attorney needs only to prove that after drinking you were not able to drive your car in a “normal” capacity. That sounds pretty cut and dried, but it is not quite as simple as that.
The law says that the County Attorney needs only to prove that after drinking you were not able to drive your car in a “normal” capacity. That sounds pretty cut and dried, but it is not quite as simple as that.
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