Articles Tagged with DUI

A recent Louisiana Supreme Court ruling dispelled the notion that, in order to offer into evidence documents certifying the accuracy of a breathalyzer machine, the state was required to make the certifying technician available to testify. The ruling explained that, since the documents were “not testimonial” in nature, their admission without the technician’s testimony did not violate the Constitution’s Confrontation Clause.

The case stems back to the 2012 traffic stop of Maurice Hawley. After a state trooper stopped the man’s vehicle for speeding and an improper lane change, he suspected the driver of being intoxicated. Hawley blew a .144 using an Intoxilyzer 5000 device, prompting the state to charge him with driving while under the influence.

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All criminal trials include the right of the accused to receive a fair trial. A man charged with drunk driving got his conviction overturned by the Louisiana Court of Appeal because the trial he received was not a fair one. The recent ruling stated that, when the trial court allowed the state to use a partial and incomplete breath analysis test result as proof that the driver had a blood alcohol content above .08 and had violated the law, it allowed the jury to be improperly prejudiced and necessitated a reversal of the conviction.

In May 2010, John Wayne Farley was involved in an auto accident for which he was at fault. Shreveport Police Police arrested Farley for driving drunk. During a breath test, Farley began blowing on the Intoxilyzer device but stopped breathing into the device before it could complete its analysis. According to the officer overseeing the test, the device’s display gave a reading of .17 prior to the driver’s discontinuation of the test.

At Farley’s trial (4th offense DWI), the state offered evidence from the officer regarding the .17 reading. The state used this evidence as proof of that the driver had a blood alcohol content above the legal limit of .08 and that the man was guilty of violating La. R.S. 14.98. The prosecutor told the jury several times about the officer’s observation of the .17 reading and reminded them that a .17 blood alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit.

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While news stories often cover incidents where drivers facing second, third, or subsequent drunk driving offenses receive seemingly very light sentences, this does not mean that you should fail to take your DWI case seriously. Even first-offense misdemeanor charges can mean jail, as one southeast Louisiana man discovered when the Louisiana Court of Appeal refused to overturn his six-month prison sentence for the misdemeanor of operating while intoxicated.

During the early morning hours of Sept. 27, 2011, a Louisiana State Trooper observed Daniel Morales driving erratically in St. Bernard Parish. The trooper pulled Morales over and ordered the driver to perform field sobriety tests, which he failed. While in custody, Morales refused to take a breathalyzer test. He admitted having consumed 2-3 shots of whisky the night before, but he claimed that his condition was the result of having awoken very early that morning.

The trial court found Morales guilty of operating a vehicle while intoxicated, a misdemeanor, and issued him the maximum prison sentence of six months. Morales appealed the sentence, contending that it was excessive. The driver argued that, because the 2011 incident was his first offense and his illegal behavior neither caused nor threatened serious harm to anyone, imposition of the maximum prison sentence allowed by the statute was improper and that the court should have considered probation.

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A group of experts in Louisiana worked for two years studying the state’s drunk driving laws. From that panel’s study came a set of reforms in the state’s drunk driving laws that passed during the most recent legislative session and were signed into law by Governor Bobby Jindal. The reforms set out to, among other things, add greater clarity to the law and reduce the number of suspended or home-incarceration sentences.

According to a dailyworld.com report, one circumstance that the new law addressed was that of multiple offenders. The existing law created mandatory minimum sentences for various DWI offenses, but it did not remove judges’ discretion to suspend those sentences. As a result, even repeat offenders often served no jail time. Act 385 revised R.S. 14:98 to state that a driver convicted of his or her fourth or subsequent DWI offense cannot receive a suspended sentence.

• Read more about Louisiana’s DWI law.

If a driver acquired a third DWI after previously receiving a suspended sentence, probation, or parole, the new law requires that driver to serve two to five years in jail. The amended statute now requires these drivers to serve at least two years of their sentences before courts may consider granting them probation, parole, or a suspended sentence. The changes also take home incarceration off the table for these offenders, except in cases where certain special circumstances exist.

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In this digital age, it seems that a social media site exists for nearly everything. This is even true with regard to law enforcement sobriety checkpoints. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have pages notifying users of the location of police checkpoints. While New Orleans law enforcement has criticized the practice in the past, other police departments have taken a more favorable view, seeing the sites as helping to place an even brighter spotlight on law enforcement’s aggressive effort to detect and arrest impaired drivers.
When the State of Louisiana issued its Highway Safety Plan for Fiscal Year 2014, it made some strong conclusions regarding drinking and driving. “Driving after drinking is taken too lightly in Louisiana. A cultural shift toward understanding the realities and consequences of drinking and driving must take place.” The plan also called for numerous sobriety checkpoints around the state.

According to WGMB TV, however, savvy Facebook users are using the social media site as a tool for escaping these sobriety checkpoints. A Facebook page now exists entitled “Baton Rouge DWI Checkpoints.” Baton Rouge Police Lt. Cory Reech told WGMB that the checkpoint-related social media sites were highly successful. “The Facebook page or the Twitter or any kind of social media explodes within a few minutes of us setting up a checkpoint.”

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A case recently argued before a Louisiana appeals court could potentially have statewide effect depending on its fallout. In the case, a man convicted of DWI is challenging the costs assessed against him, which included not only court costs, but “cost-of-investigation” and “cost-of-prosecution” charges, as well, the News-Star reported.

Jesse M. Griffin II was arrested for a first DWI offense in 2012. In Sept. 2012, he pled guilty to a misdemeanor and received a $600 fine. In addition to his $600 fine and court costs, which were payable to the Union Parish Sheriff’s Office, Griffin was also hit with an additional $200 — $100 for the cost of investigation and another $100 for the cost of prosecution related to his case.

• Read more about Louisiana’s DWI law.

Griffin objected to these extra charges, but the trial court ruled against. Griffin then took his case to the Court of Appeal, which heard arguments on the case earlier this month. According to Griffin’s attorney, the trial court includes in its orders tacked-on obligations of $300 each for cost of investigation and cost of prosecution (for a total of an extra $600) for every felony DWI case and $100 each (an extra $200 total) for the costs of investigation and prosecution of misdemeanor matters. The court order instructs offenders to pay their fines to the sheriff’s office and to make their cost-of-investigation and cost-of-prosecution payments payable to the “3rd JDDA Prosecution Fee”.

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A state District Court judge recently agreed with a lower court in tossing evidence against an allegedly drunk driver arrested in Baton Rouge due to the improper conduct of a sobriety checkpoint, The Advocate reported. The court determined that the Baton Rouge Police Department violated guidelines established by the Louisiana Supreme Court for the proper implementation and conduct of checkpoints created to ensure compliance with the state and federal constitutions. The ruling carried wide implications as the procedural defect impacted not just one, but several drivers, arrested by the Baton Rouge police.

The ruling stems from a case involving Brian Parks, a driver whom Baton Rouge police arrested for DWI in Dec. 2010. Parks was driving through Baton Rouge when he encountered a sobriety checkpoint near the 100 block of Government Street. Parks’ attorney asserted that the way police carried out the sobriety checkpoint that ensnared the driver violated Louisiana law regarding the proper procedure for conducting DWI checkpoints.

• Read more about Louisiana’s DWI law.

In 2000, the state Supreme Court ruled that DWI checkpoints do not necessarily violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures, provided that law enforcement follow certain guidelines that the court laid out. These guidelines, among other things, require law enforcement to establish, in writing, several parameters regarding the checkpoint, including its location, time and duration. Supervisors or administrative personnel must carry out the task of establishing these parameters; it cannot be done by the officers in the field who directly conduct the checkpoint.

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