DUI - don't want one? Top ten things NOT to do!

This holiday weekend, I found a WGN news story simply inspiring:

No Breaking Dawn for this young lady. She's grounded.

Illinois Teenager Blames DUI Crash On Not Seeing 'Twilight' Film: Police Arrest Olivia Ornelas

Thousands of dedicated fans turned out over the weekend to see "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1." But for one teenage girl, the tragedy of not making it was a lot worse than choosing between Jacob or Edward.
Police in Illinois arrested an "extremely upset" 18-year-old girl on Saturday after she told authorities that she crashed her car because her boyfriend did not take her to see the new Twilight movie.

Oh yeah. HuffPo does an Illinois DUI story right.

Is refusing to submit to DUI breath testing in Illinois good advice?

Probably one of the most common questions we get at Fagan, Fagan & Davis is "if I'm stopped for DUI in Illinois, should I take the breath test?" This is always a tough one. Part of the problem is that people don't know what to expect.

Certainly, drinking and driving is not illegal.

Go ahead, read that again and get it over with . . . you know you want to.
The legal limit is 0.08, true enough, but that's just a number - a bright line drawn almost arbitrarily. Not everyone is necessarily impaired at that level in fact, but in law, all states have passed laws to support the legal fiction that it is. So what is a person to do when confronted with the guessing game of figuring out whether they're anywhere near or over that arbitrary 0.08 number on the street in the middle of the night after being confronted by a rather . . . well, confrontational police officer?
Let's see what a State's Attorney has to say about the effect of refusing to submit to breath testing has on the ability to prosecute DuPage county DUI cases.

In a press release promising the latest "no refusal" weekend the State's Attorney notes that "refusal can make it more difficult to prosecute DUI cases."

He's quite right, of course.

However, when we advise clients not to submit to breath testing (or to submit to any performance tests either for that matter), the purpose isn't to frustrate prosecution. Given the amount of public pressure put on police and prosecutors by organizations such as MADD or AAIM, DUI is prosecuted aggressively. That starts on the street, where officers who observe even a slight odor of alcohol are highly reluctant to let anyone drive away. Motorists need to expect the police are out looking for DUI, but they do not have any obligation to assist in their collection of evidence. Polite and cooperative is quite enough, including a polite refusal to take any tests including a breath or chemical test (unless you've consumed absolutely no alcohol, have not consumed any food or beverage of any kind within about 20 minutes and are the picture of perfect health).

As for "no refusal" weekends, what to do? In our opinion, don't take the field sobriety tests, refuse to answer any questions regarding anything not contained on your driver's license, insurance or registration (which the police are entitled to see), and finally . . . make them get the warrant.

One last thing. Unless you want to risk a charge of obstruction of justice or resisting arrest, when the officer tells you to exit the vehicle, do so.

Sentence in Illinois DUI crash killing man's best friends

Closing out a sad tale involving a traffic accident that resulted in the death of his two best friends, Thomas G. Ofenloch pled guilty to committing Aggravated DUI in Illinois in a Kane county courtroom. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Judge taking his plea. An expert witness in accident reconstruction testified that Ofenloch's vehicle had been traveling at speeds exceeding 100 mph at the time of the accident. Ofenloch, who was also injured in the traffic accident, had spoken over a dozen times to others either guilty of or accused of committing a DUI in Chicago and surrounding areas, and had served over 900 days on electronic home monitoring. The Court declined to credit this time to Ofenloch's sentence. His reported blood alcohol content was over the Illinois legal alcohol limit of 0.08.

Man gets 10 years in DUI crash that killed two best friends :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State

AAIM's misguided recognition

Points to anyone who sees what's wrong with this.

"Congratulations are in order for Cary Police officers Geoffrey Witherow, Ryan Sherman, Tricia Malone and Kathy Eiring, who made a combined 38 DUI arrests in 2009. In May, the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists recognized the four for their work. Witherow made the most DUI arrests out of the group with 25. Sherman and Malone had seven DUI arrests, with Eiring posting six arrests. Statistics show there were 70 total DUI arrests in Cary last year. Cary Acting Chief Ed Fetzer recommended that AAIM honor the four officers responsible for more than 50 percent of them. "Anytime an arrest has been made, we feel a life has been saved," said Anita Huvaere, the AAIM staffer who compiled the statistics for Illinois towns. "That's why we recognized the officers."" Daily Herald.

Every year, AAIM honors officers based on the number of arrests for DUI in Illinois.  All this does is promote arrests.  I'd be more interested in seeing how many of these arrests resulted in findings of guilty.  To suggest that lives were saved because someone was arrested is making some enormous assumptions that may (or may not) be warranted, given the extremely low rate of fatalities as measured against the wildly speculative numbers thrown around by organizations like AAIM of Illinois motorists committing DUI on an annual basis.  AAIM and MADD are constantly crying about how many DUIs are undetected.  If they're right, and if they're consistent, where's the bloodbath? 

Hmm. . . 12 "no-refusal" Illinois DUI arrests in a weekend. Countywide. Meh.

So Kane county holds an Illinois DUI "no-refusal" weekend. They set up with just bunches of officers on duty, and a Judge just waiting for the phone to ring so that Judge can say, "why, of course a warrant is available". The powers that be set this up over July 4th weekend, too, just for good measure. They ought to net a lot of arrests right? After all, the roads are just teeming with drunks that are begging to be arrested.

Maybe not. Eleven participating Illinois law enforcement agencies got a whole 12 DUI arrests out of this. That's right, 12. For the whole county. For the whole weekend.

Really? Here's the question - how many DUI arrests does Kane county, Illinois net on a regular weekend, and was this an effective use of government resource to enforce Illinois DUI laws on our roads. I doubt it, but I'd love to hear the Sun-Times and other news stories do more than just repeat the State's Attorney's PR hype on the subject, and ask some useful questions. Let's hope that until that question is answered, there's some more thought put into this.

Illinois traffic arrest leads to a fatal DUI

Child killed in Steger crash after police stop - chicagotribune.com

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Weakening the 4th amendment . . .

If the Obama administration gets its way, federal law enforcement and local police agencies will be able to dig into cell phone location data and find YOU without a warrant any old time they please. The 4th amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure by the government, and two important questions raised are:

• is there a valid expectation of privacy at all in such information;
• if so, is this an unreasonable search?

What does this have to do with DUI in Illinois? 4th amendment issues are regularly tested in DUI arrest situations. You see, almost all DUI arrests involve investigations that are immediate in nature, and happen without any warrant. Getting a warrant slows things down and requires that a judge hear why an investigation needs to go further - the judge determines whether "probable cause" exists to allow a search. This makes on-site investigation difficult, but provides strong protection to rights of the person being investigated. The police would rather not wait, and so, most investigations proceed without warrant. A warrantless search is presumed to violate 4th amendment protection, unless probable cause can be demonstrated.

The practical result is that police typically investigate with an eye towards establishing probable cause (as opposed to investigating with an eye towards exoneration). They'd rather arrest now and ask questions later than slow down and ask careful questions.

Add to this the fact that government is always seeking to expand their ability to "get around" the restrictions of the 4th amendment, and you have your connection between DUI and the Justice Department's desire to track anyone they please by cell-phone without a warrant.

Everything is connected, and the possibility for abuse of power increases every time the power to invade the rights of the individual are pushed further down the chain of command. Let's hope the Courts push back.

The basics of Illinois DUI Suspension law

Among the most common questions I get have to do with confusion about a very important part of DUI law in Illinois, so I'll post an explanation here to try to explain (briefly) how DUI license suspension works in Illinois. While this information is consistent whether you face a Chicago DUI arrest, DUI in Lake county or elsewhere, nothing can replace an explanation by your lawyer in the context of your case, but I hope this helps.

DUI charges in Illinois usually involves a component called a statutory summary suspension. Statutory summary suspension means that the Secretary of State of Illinois, by law, is required to suspend the license of a motorist arrested for DUI in Illinois. This happens if the offense took place on a public roadway within Illinois and the officer properly filled out and served the motorist with a copy of a “Notice of Statutory Summary Suspension”. The length of a suspension is determined primarily by the actions of the motorist, now under arrest for DUI.

After arrest, the officer will request any number of chemical tests, including a breath, urine or blood test. If the motorist submits to the tests requested by the officer and that test shows either an alcohol level at or above a 0.08, or the presence of any illegal substance, the length of the suspension will then be determined by the motorist’s history at the Secretary of State. The motorist will either be suspended for six months or one year, depending on their prior record.

If any test requested by the officer is refused, the length of license suspension is again determined the same way, but this time, as either a one year suspension or a three year suspension. For example, if the officer requests urine and blood tests and the motorist refuses urine but submits to blood (or the other way around), the officer will mark the Notice of Statutory Summary Suspension as a “refusal” to submit, and the Secretary of State of Illinois will be required by law to enter a suspension for either one or three years accordingly.

It is important to note that if the greater term of suspension (one year or three) applies in either a refusal or submission, no hardship permit is available. This longer term of suspension for either refusal or submission is dependent on a determination by the Secretary of State of Illinois as to whether the motorist arrested for DUI has, within the previous five years, either been suspended as a result of a DUI arrest or been arrested and found guilty of a DUI.

It is important to remember that the suspension is administrative, and although it can be challenged in the same Court where the DUI criminal charges will be heard, it is a completely separate case. In fact, under Illinois law, Statutory Summary Suspension hearings are civil, as opposed to Illinois DUI charges, which are criminal in nature.

Look out - Ready for Driving Under the Influence of a parasite?

Get ready. Here it comes. Scientists hypothesize that a parasitic disease known as toxoplasmosis can impair your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle. Of course, since money could be made here, Illinois' crack legislature is probably already thinking about how to criminalize this in the Illinois Vehicle Code to make you safer!
Just think, the person driving down the road next to you could be under the influence of a tiny parasite and cause a crash. I can see Illinois State Troopers out with medical test kits, DUI (Driving Under Infection) Roadblocks set up near hospitals (where else are you going to go with a parasite?). Brilliant! Can't wait.