Study: Repeat DUI Offenders Have Reasoning Deficits

Repeat impaired-driving offenders have subtle deficits in their decision-making abilities that may not be detected through conventional tests, says a new study.

Researchers assessed 34 male, second-time DUI (driving under the influence) offenders enrolled in a rehabilitation program and a control group of 31 healthy, non-offenders matched for age, education, and alcohol use.

All the participants underwent psychiatric assessments ad conventional neuropsychological testing, including the the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), to help assess personality patterns.

The IGT, Kasar explained, is used in many studies investigating alcohol problems because it simulates real-life decision-making.

“We found that second-time DUI offenders have a poorer performance on the IGT test than their matched counterparts,” Muzaffer Kasar, a resident in psychiatry at the Bakirkoy Research and Training Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, said in a journal news release.

In contrast, he and colleague David J. Nutt, a professor of psychiatry at Imperial College London in the U.K., found no differences between the repeat DUI offenders and the control group on conventional neuropsychological testing and temperament and character testing (TCI) scores.

“These findings suggest that second-time DUI offenders do not suffer from motor impulsiveness — that is, a lack of impulse control in ‘here and now’ situations,” Nutt said. Instead, he explained, “they suffer from cognitive impulsiveness, which depends on associating negative experiences with possible negative consequences.”

In other words, “there are brain reasons for why people make poor choices regarding DUI,” he added.

The researchers urged that such testing be expanded for people convicted of DUI, which they noted accounted for 40 percent of the fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States. In addition, they said, 33 percent of the DUI drivers were recidivists, or repeat offenders.

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Officer Who Booked Gibson For DUI Suing Own PD

The Sheriff’s Deputy who arrested Mel Gibson in the infamous 2006 DUI incident is suing Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, claiming he has been subject to repeated disciplinary action and overlooked for promotions since complaining that the actor received preferential treatment from police, People reports. Sheriff’s Deputy James Mee is asking for an undisclosed sum in a lawsuit against the County of Los Angeles that alleges discrimination and harassment and states that he has been singled out in a four-year investigation into who leaked the confidential arrest report to TMZ.

The suit claims that Mee, who is Jewish, was asked by superiors to delete portions of his report, “effectively participating in covering up the anti-Semitic posture of Mr. Gibson.” Gibson allegedly spewed a string of anti-Semitic statements on the night in question. The lawsuit also alleges that Gibson is a close friend of Sheriff Lee Baca and other top officials.

“My client is being retaliated against because he is a Jewish deputy,” Mee’s lawyer Etan Z. Lorant told People. “He was the most logical person for the police to investigate, but they didn’t look into any other deputies. They started with him and ended with him, even though other deputies had access to the report. They should’ve kept investigating.”

The lawsuit states that no charges were ever filed against Mee and that the case has been filed as “unresolved.”

“We categorically deny this lawsuit,” Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore told People. “This has nothing to do with ethnicity. What the sheriff’s department did was launch an investigation because someone was releasing confidential documents, which is a crime. We look forward to telling the whole story in this case.”

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Do we have a law on drunk driving?

In a weird epiphany of sorts, I was knocked back to my senses when I had a crazy car accident last week. Everyone with common sense knows that drinking and driving just do not mesh, yet many alcohol drinkers ignore this. In my case, the law of averages finally caught up with me. I had numerous occasions where I would reach my home at wee hours of the morning not knowing how I got home drunk. Being a normal folk with no driver, I drive myself to wine tasting events, parties and everywhere all the time. I dodged a few dozen potential accidents, but this time I was hit. It was more like I hit something…. I rammed into my defenseless garage. Minor bruises aside, it was my car and garage that were badly damaged, and my ego that was more hurting than the physical side. Well…. the pocket hurts very much too.

This incident made me curious about existing Philippine laws on drunk driving. Do we have a law on Driving Under Influence of alcohol or drugs (more on the former) or DUI? We hear this all the time in the US with big name celebrities like Mel Gibson, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, and numerous professional athletes caught with DUI charges. A strict DUI law is a protection to both the drivers of the vehicles, and more so for the unprepared public. Drunk driving is just courting accident to happen. There is actually no real acceptable alcohol level for safe driving. Technically, alcohol creeps in on the nerve cells of the brain by interrupting the link between nerve cells and all other cells, affecting the nerve pathways (defined as a bundle of nerve fibers following a path to the brain that communicates with other parts of the body)—it suppresses the activities of excitatory nerve pathways and increases the activities of inhibitory nerve pathways. In layman’s term it just means alcohol intake will slow down the overall reflex responses and negate any control we have over our body.

Outdated drunk driving law

The only law we have in the country concerning drunk driving is in the motherhood Republic Act 4136, also known as the Land Transportation and Traffic Code. This was enacted into law way back during the time of former President GMA’s father, President Diosdado Macapagal in 1964. In my thorough search for provisions on drunk driving in this extremely long Republic Law, I chanced upon only two sections which mentioned driving while under the influence of liquor.

Read this full article here.

National DUI Crackdown Runs Through Labor Day

Going out this weekend?  Be warned. So are state and local law enforcement agencies, as they join thousands of their colleagues across the country in a nationwide DUI crackdown.

The “Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest.” mobilization began Friday, Aug. 20 and runs through Labor Day, Sept. 6.

In Delaware this means increased enforcement in the form of 15 sobriety checkpoints and 273 DUI saturation patrols, as well as additional radio and TV ads reminding people that one more drink could be one too many.

“Nearly 12,000 people nationwide die each year due to impaired driving,” Delaware Office of Highway Safety Director Jana Simpler said. “We want everyone to understand that impaired driving is a crime and often has deadly results. If you drive impaired, you will be arrested.”

Ninety-six drivers were arrested for DUI during the 2009 impaired driving crackdown.

During the 2009 crackdown period there were nine traffic fatalities and nearly half were alcohol-related.  Since Jan. 1, 17 of the 63 traffic deaths (27 percent) were alcohol-related compared to this time last year when 20 of the 69 traffic deaths (29 percent) were alcohol-related, OHS spokeswoman Alison Kirk said.

If you choose to drive impaired, you could face jail time, loss of driver license, and mandatory use of an ignition interlock device, installed in your vehicle at your own expense.  If you are convicted of a DUI you will have a criminal record for the rest of your life, your insurance premiums will significantly increase, and you will have to pay for and attend a mandatory eight-week DUI treatment classes with drug testing.

More than 30 state and local police agencies, representing most of Delaware’s law enforcement community, are participating in the crackdown in combination with Checkpoint Strikeforce including: Blades Police, Bethany Beach Police, Camden Police, Clayton Police, Cheswold Police, Delaware City Police, Delaware State Police, Dewey Beach Police, Dover Police, Elsmere Police, Felton Police, Georgetown Police, Harrington Police, Laurel Police, Lewes Police, Middletown Police, Milford Police, Millsboro Police, Milton Police, New Castle City Police, New Castle County Police, Newark Police, Newport Police, Ocean View Police, Rehoboth Beach Police, Seaford Police, Smyrna Police and Wyoming Police.

For more information on the drunk driving visit www.Stopimpaireddriving.org or visit the Governor’s Highway Safety Association website at www.ghsa.org.

Delaware’s participation in the national mobilization is part of its 2010 Checkpoint Strikeforce and is the final enforcement effort in the OHS’ 120 Days of Summer HEAT campaign.  For more information about Checkpoint Strikeforce and all of OHS’ campaigns visit www.ohs.delaware.gov and www.twitter.com/DEHighwaySafe.

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Lose Your DUI Case – 5 Fail Safe Ways To Fail

I bet you have found hundreds of articles telling you how to beat a DUI. They give you magical tips. They promise you freedom, harmony and bliss, or at least make a thinly veiled attempt to convince...

This story was published on duilawblog.com by DUIAttorney.com LLC.

DUI Jail Survival 101

You did everything wrong. You got pulled over. You got arrested. You failed the blood test. Then you did everything you could to make it right. You hired a DUI lawyer. You wrote out your version of...

This story was published on duilawblog.com by DUIAttorney.com LLC.

DUI Arrests Up in South Carolina: Some Say it’s a Fundrasing Tool

Arrests across South Carolina for driving under the influence are way up, road fatalities are way down and there’s disagreement as to why.

Spartanburg Solicitor Trey Gowdy told The GreenvilleNewshe believes the drop in highway deaths shows the latest reforms to the state’s DUI laws are working.

“I would say it’s a suc­cess,” he said. Others point to in­creased DUI arrests as well as an increase in seat-belt use by South Carolina driv­ers as the cause of the re­duced deaths. Joe McCulloch, a Colum­bia defense lawyer who has handled DUI cases for 30 years, said the new law has simply been a fundraising tool for state governmentat the expense of the rights of thosewhomight have been drinking but are innocent of DUI.

McCulloch said the in­creased DUI arrests are the result of more troopers being hired and a policy now being used nationwide of saturation arrests.

“Essentially, throw that net out, catch as many fish as you can,” he said officers and troopers are told.

“Even if you catch some who are innocent, it will all get sorted out at the jury. Officers are being told they need to err on the side of caution and not on the side of the presumption of inno­cence and that’s problem­atic.”

Mark Keel, director of the state Department of Public Safety, which over­sees the Highway Patrol, said every trooper must meet probable cause be­fore an arrest. However, he said it is true that law enfor­cement agencies are work­ing with local law enforce­ment officers using satura­tion arrests.

“It is part of the deterrent strategy,” he said.

DUI arrests by troopers are up by almost 20 percent since the new law went into effect in February 2009. DUI arrests since 2008 have increased by more than 4,000, or 32 percent, according to Public Safety records.

Keel said local law enfor­cement agencies also re­port significant increases. In fact, he said, the law en­forcement network that works with the Highway Patrol has already reached the DUI arrest numbers for all of last year.

That comes as road fatal­ities have dropped sharply. As of last week, there were 89 fewer crashes and 99 fewer people killed in road accidents year to date com­pared with the same period last year.

Deaths are also down significantly during the “100 deadly days of sum­mer,” a time period during which law enforcement of­ficials say a large number of people die in road acci­dents.

Keel calls the summer fa­tality drop, which was 87 as of Aug. 15, “phenomenal.”

In Greenville County, al­cohol- related fatalities have dropped from42 for the pe­riod of February 2008 to January 2009 to 26 from February 2009 to January of this year, Sheriff Steve Loftis said.

DUI arrests during that same period have in­creased from 421 to 445, he said. There have been eight alcohol-related deaths since February and 323 arrests, he said.

He believes the in­creased penalties of the new law are making a dif­ference.

“I think the new DUI law is having an impact,” he said.

The new law was gener­ally aimed at providing stiffer sentences for repeat offenders and those with high blood-alcohol levels. People are able to avoid jail on the first offense but do have to serve time for the second conviction and ev­ery one thereafter. They are also required to seek treatment.

The new law increases suspension periods from 90 to 180 days to six to 15 months, depending onhow many previous offenses the driver has. Drivers are still able to appeal their sus­pensions to the Office of Motor Vehicle Hearings and, if successful, continue to drive while awaiting trial. Greenville defense law­yer Steve Sumner, a former prosecutor who concen­trates on DUI cases, said he believes thenewlaw has had a deterrent effect be­cause of the increased pen­alties.

However, he said in­creased media attention on DUI and more DUI arrests are also deterring drivers.

“When you add up those three, there is a deterrent effect,” he said.

Laura Hudson, who leads public policy for the state office of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said she believes the in­creased arrests are the cause of any decrease in al­cohol- related crashes.

“It’s been my experience that the more enforcement we have and the more per­ception there is that ‘I am going to get caught,’ the less DUI fatalities we have,” she said.

McCulloch said most of those caught driving after drinking alcohol don’t re­peat their actions, no mat­ter what version of the law is in effect. And he said law enforcement officers are being told they can’t dis­miss their cases once the arrest is made, sending more questionable cases through the system.

“We frequently see cases where people admit that they have been drinking but then they pass two out of three field exercises,” McCulloch said.

He said he had just watched a case in which a person was given a hori­zontal gaze test, a test he said police contend is 80 percent accurate in detect­ing alcohol. The officer tes­tified that the driver passed, McCulloch said, but he still arrested him.

He believes such arrests are part of a strategy of scaring drivers by arrest­ing those who may have consumed alcohol, even if initial evidence doesn’t point to driving under the influence.

“While that might be a good psychological ploy to try and deter people from drinking and driving at all, it’s not really fair to the peo­ple who have the right to drink and drive because that is the law,” he said. “They just don’t have the right to drink too much.”

Court records aren’t yet clear on the impact of the new law.

For the June 2008 to July 2009 year, the most recent available, conviction rates for first-time offenders of both driving under the in­fluence and driving with a blood-alcohol level of .08 both are down from the previous year.

For the charge of DUI, the conviction rate, which includes guilty pleas and trials, went from 53.2 per­cent to 38 percent. For first offenders of the .08 law, the conviction rate dropped from 91 percent to 46 per­cent. The conviction rate percentage increased for subsequent offenses of DUI, records show.

Keel said a frequent com­plaint from troopers is that DUIcases are continued so much, sometimes for years.

“But I tell them, ‘What I would tell you to do is con­tinue to get that drunk driv­er off the road because one thing for sure is he doesn’t kill himself or he doesn’t kill somebody else that night. We have to worry about the court later.’”

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New App Measures BAC

Drinking just became much more high-tech. Funtoxication, an iPhone and iPod Touch application that measures users’ blood alcohol content, has been garnering attention recently for its fun, easy-to-use format and unique design.

Michael Tankenoff, owner of North Loop Media, LLC and creator of Funtoxication, came up with the idea last year as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. He didn’t see any apps that combined a Blood Alcohol Calculator with entertainment and decided to create his own.

Tankenoff partnered with TryCatch Games of St. Paul, Minn., to develop Funtoxication. It launched in the iTunes App Store recently for 99 cents, but Tankenoff has recently been promoting it as his schedule allows.

“There’s definitely been a good response. When it first came out, it was an interesting app because it was one of the few out there,” Tankenoff said. “… The BAC calculator and the taxi pop-up reminder and the games – those three elements have definitely set it apart from other apps.”

Funtoxication’s BAC calculator asks for a user’s gender, weight and age, as well as the type and amount of drinks consumed to estimate his or her blood alcohol content. It tracks the amount of time someone has been drinking in real time based on the initial starting point he or she indicates using a slider function.

When users hit the legal limit of 0.08, the program even offers them the option of calling a cab every time they open the app. If one chooses to call a cab, it locates a nearby taxi service using Google maps.

Have you already been accused of DUI? If so, you would be well advised to contact a Polk County DUI lawyer at our firm for a free and confidential consultation. You may be surprised at the results our Florida DUI lawyers can achieve for you.

Read further about the new app here.

Attorney tries new tack to keep record from media

A Seattle attorney is battling to keep the news media from seeing a deputy’s report from her June arrest on suspicion of drunken driving took a novel twist this week, baffling officials with the King County Sheriff’s Office.

Her attorney, Tyler Firkins, filed a motion Monday in King County District Court in Shoreline, seeking to use a rule that governs which records the court can release to bar the Sheriff’s Office from releasing the report. A Superior Court judge already has ruled the report can be released under the state Public Disclosure Act, a decision that she is appealing.

At issue in the new motion is a rule known as Administrative Rule for Courts of Limited Jurisdiction No. 9, or ARLJ 9, which exempts district-court officials from releasing police reports unless they have been admitted into evidence, incorporated into a court pleading or have been placed into public record. In district court, a police report isn’t considered evidence unless it is submitted as an exhibit during trial or a plea hearing, something that hasn’t happened in the the attorney’s case.

According to Firkins’ filing, she is seeking to have that rule extended to the Sheriff’s Office to prevent it from releasing the report.

“We release 17,000 case reports a year under the [state] public-disclosure statute and we’ve never heard this argument in the past,” said sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart.

The Sheriff’s Office and other law-enforcement agencies routinely release redacted police reports to members of the news media — often even before a suspect is charged with a crime — under the state’s Public Disclosure Act. However, under state law, law-enforcement agencies can withhold reports if releasing them would jeopardize an ongoing investigation — an exemption that doesn’t apply in a case that the Sheriff’s Office considers a straightforward DUI.

They did not immediately return phone calls Tuesday.

John Cobb, the King County deputy prosecutor who has been representing the Sheriff’s Office in the matter, has been out of town so he hasn’t seen Firkins’ latest filing.

But on Friday, the two attorneys “had a polite difference of opinion regarding the application of Rule 9 to state statute that requires the release of public records and police reports,” Cobb said by phone from Missoula, Mont.

Though he hasn’t formed an official opinion yet, Cobb said he can’t see how a District Court rule could trump the state’s Public Disclosure Act.

She was arrested early June 4 — her 52nd birthday — and later booked into the King County Jail on investigation of DUI. She has claimed in court records that she was the victim of a hit-and-run accident and suffered a head injury, producing symptoms that mimicked signs of intoxication.

During an interview earlier this month, she told a Times reporter that she had a few drinks at a dinner party earlier in the evening but said she was not drunk. She has also acknowledged that she refused to perform field-sobriety tests and submit to a breath test after she was pulled over by a sheriff’s deputy.

According to a breathalyzer log from the State Patrol Crime Lab, she made five breath-test attempts before refusing to continue. As a result, her blood-alcohol content was not measured.

According to Cobb and the sheriff’s office, she didn’t mention a car accident or an injury at the time of her arrest and refused to answer routine medical questions when she was placed in a holding cell at the Kenmore precinct, according to Cobb and the Sheriff’s Office.

Last month, she filed a motion in King County Superior Court seeking to block the release of the police report, arguing that public knowledge of her purported head injury would cause her embarrassment and violate her privacy.

On Aug. 12, King County Superior Court Judge Laura Inveen ruled that the Sheriff’s Office could release the police report and some of the video footage related to her arrest to the news media.

Immediately after Inveen’s ruling, Firkins filed an appeal with the state Court of Appeals in Seattle. As a result, Inveen’s ruling was stayed until the issue could be heard by Court of Appeals Commissioner James Verellen.

Six days later, on Aug. 18, Kenmore City Prosecutor Sarah Roberts charged her with DUI.

Oral arguments before Verellen were originally scheduled for Tuesday afternoon but were canceled because Verellen transferred the case to the Court of Appeals division in Spokane. A new hearing date has not been scheduled.

The reason for the move to Spokane was not outlined in a letter from the Seattle appeals court to Firkins and Cobb. But it appears the venue was changed because friends of her’s have ties to the Seattle-based appellate court and there could be a potential conflict of interest.

In an interview with The Seattle Times earlier this month, she provided statements from friends who attended the June dinner party, including host Rosselle Pekelis, a retired judge who has served in King County Superior Court, the Court of Appeals in Seattle and the state Supreme Court. Another guest at the dinner party was federal Judge Carolyn Dimmick, on the bench in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Those statements were among the evidence presented to Inveen and are now part of the record being reviewed by the appeals court.

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Delco DUI Taskforce to arrest everyone ‘Over the limit’

The problem of impaired-driving is a serious one. While America witnessed a decline in the number of impaired-driving fatalities from 2007-2008, the numbers are still too high. That’s why the Northern Delaware County DUI Taskforce today announced it will join other law enforcement agencies throughout the country in support of an intensive crackdown on impaired driving now until Sept. 6, known by its tagline, “Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest.”

The Taskforce will conduct sobriety checkpoints during the weekends of Aug. 27 within Radnor Township and Sept. 3 in Upper Darby Township. In 2008 alone, nearly 12,000 people died in crashes in which a driver or motorcycle rider was at or above the legal limit, according to the latest statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The age group with the highest percentage of alcohol impaired drivers in fatal crashes is young people age 21-24.

“All too often, innocent, law-abiding people suffer tragic consequences and the loss of loved ones due to this careless disregard for human life. Because we’re committed to ending the carnage, we’re intensifying enforcement during the crackdown. We’ll be especially vigilant during high-risk nighttime hours when impaired drivers are most likely to be on our roads,” said Taskforce Director John Viola. In every state as well as the District of Columbia it is illegal to drive with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 grams per deciliter or higher.

About 10,000 police agencies will participate in this year’s mid-August through Labor Day crackdown, including law enforcement officers representing every State, the District of Columbia and many U.S. cities and towns. According to the latest data, 32 percent of fatalities in motor vehicle traffic crashes involved a driver or motorcycle rider with a BAC of .08 g/dL or above — an average of one fatality every 45 minutes.

The Northern Delaware County DUI Taskforce said its officers will be aggressively looking for all impaired drivers during the crackdown and will arrest anyone they find driving while impaired — regardless of age, vehicle type, or time of day. Since it’s inception in 2009, the Taskforce has conducted 12 operations to date. The taskforce has arrested 42 drivers for Driving Under the Influence of alcohol or drugs, issued 16 citations for underage drinking, 266 citations and 192 warnings for other motor vehicle violations.

“Our message is simple and unwavering. If we find you driving impaired, we will arrest you. No exceptions,” said Viola. “Even if you beat the odds and walk away from an impaired-driving crash alive, motorists should be aware that the consequences of driving while impaired can still virtually destroy your life.”

According to the Pennsylvania DUI Association (www.padui.org), violators often face jail time, loss of their driver licenses, or being sentenced to use ignition interlocks. Their insurance rates go up. Other financial hits include attorney fees, court costs, lost time at work, and the potential loss of job or job prospects. When family, friends and co-workers find out, violators can also face tremendous personal embarrassment and humiliation.

“Driving impaired is simply not worth all the consequences. So don’t take the chance. Remember, if you are over the limit, you’re under arrest,” said Viola. The national Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest. crackdown is led by NHTSA and combines high-visibility enforcement with heightened public awareness through advertising and publicity. For more information on the crackdown, visit the High-Visibility Enforcement Campaign Headquarters at www.StopImpairedDriving.org.

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