Reputation.Resources.Results

The Supreme Court in a 9-0 opinion held first that “when a minor offense alone is involved, police officers do not usually face the kind of emergency that can justify a warrantless entry into the home.

First, let’s figure out what kind of DUI it is. They’re usually misdemeanors unless there’s been an accident, had children under 15 in the car, or you’ve had problems in the past. Most of the time when they give you a citation and let you go home it’s a misdemeanor.

Today we’re going to talk about parked cars. Police sometimes approach you when you’ve legally parked a vehicle and are using it as a stationary shelter—i.e., you’ve had too much to drink perhaps, and you decide to pull off the road. Or not get on it in the first place. You’re doing the right thing—what the law says you should do. But then the police come upon you, claiming that it was a “check welfare” and arrest you for DUI even though you weren’t actually driving.

Today, we’re going to talk about four other types of questionable “equipment violations” that the police in Arizona tend to rely on for thin DUI stops: License Plate covers, window tinting, rear-view mirror hanging placards, and “mud flaps”

Headlights, taillights, brake lights, and license plate lights– claimed vehicle equipment lighting violations police tend to use as an excuse or pretext to stop a vehicle late at night and conduct a DUI investigation.

Sometimes the police commit the same traffic infractions themselves. The police transparently use these purported “infractions” as bold excuses (or “pretexts”), to investigate the drivers for DUI. And they have generally been very successful at it.

There are exhaustive amounts of DUI case law that address the level of reasonable suspicion needed for a DUI stop, when and how breathalyzers and blood tests can be used as scientific evidence of impairment, and how field sobriety tests must be conducted to be used as evidence of probable cause for arrest. But, new technologies for alcohol detection that are currently available or will soon be available are likely to result in new case law that addresses the accuracy and use of these technologies to make legal determinations of impairment or impose other collateral consequences on impaired drivers.

If you are convicted of DUI in Arizona, this information will be shared with various governmental entities and private parties can also access the information through certain channels. Even before you are convicted, there could be certain parties that receive notice of your arrest. This means that, in addition to jail time and restrictions on your ability to drive, even the accusation of a DUI can have long-lasting impacts on your ability to work in your profession, your professional reputation, your immigration status, and even your ability to travel to certain other countries.

Consenting to Blood Draws: When the police tell you the consequences of refusal, they don’t automatically make your consent “involuntary,” says the Arizona Supreme Court. In virtually every DUI case, the police request that the driver voluntarily submit to a post-arrest breath or blood test. These requests occur in coercive circumstances, e.g., the driver may be handcuffed and in the back of a police vehicle. But Arizona law also incentivizes blood draws by penalizing drivers who refuse testing with a one-year license suspension and requiring the police to explain these consequences in real time before requesting consent.

The New York Times recently published an article challenging the reliability of breath tests used in DUI prosecutions nationwide. While the reporter appeared to conclude that breath tests could be reliable, the article also found that they often could not be counted upon in practice. Problems occurred in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington and numerous other states, and affected breath test equipment manufactured by almost every leading company. In some states, fundamental flaws in breath testing have led to the dismissal of thousands of convictions.