DUI Patrol, photo by: Steven Damron

As the winter holiday season approaches area police will be stepping up their DUI enforcement efforts throughout your state. If you are going to be out drinking take a cab home or bring along your breathalyzer and test yourself before driving.

Depending on your state, a DUI conviction comes with steep penalties for even first time offenders, including up to one year in jail, up to $2500 in fines, a six month license suspension and mandatory use of a breath alcohol ignition interlock device.

When pulling over drivers police officers look for a variety of indicators to spot potential drunk drivers, these include:

• Turning widely
• Braking erratically
• Driving without headlights
• Weaving, swerving, drifting out of the lanes
• Straddling the center line
• Responding slowly to a change in traffic signals
• Turning abruptly
• Accelerating or decelerating rapidly

Don't have a breathalyzer? We offer personal breathalyzers right here at Q3ATS. Looking for a professional breathalyzer? The AlcoHAWK PT500 is used by police officers to do roadside screening of potential drunk drivers.

-

Source: 24-7 Press Release, Approaching Holiday Season Means Increased DUI Patrols in Illinois

Gerald Gibson

A state trooper in northwest Ohio who was once honored for making the most DUI arrests has been charged with drunken driving.

A patrol spokesman says Gerald Gibson has taken a leave following his arrest last weekend.

He was most recently an investigator at the Allen Correctional Institution.

Gibson was off duty when police in the town of Waynesfield say he drifted left of center and then refused to take a breath test.

He was named 2002 trooper of the year in Lima and Mothers Against Drunk Driving honored him in 1997 for making the most drunken-driving arrests by a Lima trooper.

-

Source: The Lima News, http://www.limaohio.com/news/trooper-43518-arrested-charge.html

-

A sad and ironic twist in this man's career.  If you're innocent why wouldn't you submit to a breath test?  Getting a DUI is far worse than careless driving charge.

Got comments? Let us hear them!

Daniel Munoz

Daniel munoz, a 56-year-old man, told a judge he drove drunk despite a dozen convictions about the time his father died and his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

“I had a lot of stuff on my mind, and I started drinking too much,” Daniel Munoz said Tuesday.

McHenry County Judge Joseph Condon told Munoz that alcoholics always would face triggers or stresses that they might use to justify drinking.

Condon sentenced Munoz to 10 years in prison for what a prosecutor said were his 13th and 14th drunken-driving convictions.

Munoz’ blood-alcohol level was 0.385 percent in the most recent incident.

-

Source: Northwest Herald; http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2009/11/17/r_wrthi8bwrlcxur7wwlqodg/index.xml

-

This drunk driver needs some real help! Perhaps 10 sober years will rehabilitate the man.

Comments? Type em' and submit em'!

A new supreme court ruling has made it so that the prosecution must make a lab technician available to testify in person if the defendant demands it. As a result, some cases already have been dismissed. One state, Virginia, has called a special legislative session to change its laws. And some lawyers think the ruling will continue to have a major effect.

In a 5-4 decision, the high court said that lab reports served as “witnesses” for the prosecution. And because the 6th Amendment gives defendants a right to "be confronted with the witnesses against him," Justice Antonin Scalia said that drug defendants and others were "entitled to be confronted with the [lab] analysts at trial."

Source: Los Angeles Times; http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-crime-labs26-2009jul26,0,420958.story

--

What do you think about the supreme court's decision?