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By ArizonaDUI.com, March 8, 2010 9:45 am

Last week, the Arizona Supreme Court agreed to review a Court of Appeals case pertaining to implied consent law for persons arrested for suspicions of DWI.

Whether or not a warrant should be required prior to a blood test in a DWI arrest is what’s causing the debate.

The Supreme Court agreed to consider a recent Court of Appeals decision on the issue. In that recent case, the court had decided that failure to resist a blood test did not constitute consent. In other words, as it stands right now, simply because a person doesn’t blatantly refuse a blood test, does not mean the person has given his/her consent.

The individual under arrest, according to the court, has a right to understand the implications of refusal and verbally and explicitly consent to or refuse the test.

This sounds a bit like how the Miranda Rights came to be…law enforcement providing individuals with an explicit explanation of their rights.

In this case, the Court of Appeals went on to define the state’s “implied consent” law. It stated clearly that a motorist, though he or she will consent to losing the privilege to drive, still maintains the right to withhold consent for a warrantless search.

The Court of Appeals says the law in question is called “implied consent” because drivers are subject to a civil driver’s license suspension if they refuse to have blood drawn.

But the ruling says motorists clearly still have the right to withhold consent for a non-warrant search.

This post was intended to provide general information only and is not intended as specific legal advice. You should not rely upon this information alone, but should consult legal counsel regarding the application of the laws and regulations discussed and as applied to your specific case or circumstance.

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By ArizonaDUI.com, March 3, 2010 12:04 pm

Remember guys – once you have given your license and registration to the police officer who pulls you over, you are not required to answer any of his questions.

A mistake a lot of people make is self-incrimination. Anything you say to a police officer can be used against you later in trial. It is your wisest move to tell the officer you want to speak to an attorney before you move forward with the conversation.

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By ArizonaDUI.com, March 2, 2010 9:08 am

Flickr User: johnrawlinson

Sober Steering Sensors is a Canadian company out of Ontario, Canada’s most densely populated province. The company is developing technology that makes use of chemical sensors built into steering wheels to detect the gas byproducts of alcohol through the skin of drivers. This transdermal technology, developed in conjunction with California-based Seacoast Science, has been garnering a lot of interest.

Other forms of car-controlled breathalyzers do currently exist, but these interlock systems require drivers to blow into a Breathalyzer before starting their car (an obvious change in driver behavior). If the breath test system registers alcohol above the legal limit, the vehicle will not start.

These systems currently being sold in the U.S. and around the world are visible interlock system devices. One that might exist in the family car creates an undeniable social stigma that not only the driver, but also the driver’s children and family, must deal with on a daily basis. One major problem with these visible interlock systems is that people won’t install them in their cars because of the social stigma associated with them.

Interlock devices have also been criticized because they require drivers to blow into the device before the car will start as well as after driving for a period of time, so drivers must be able to safely pull over and repeat the test when the machine tells them to. This isn’t practical or safe.

The Canadian groups’ device, Sober Steering Sensors, tests drivers through the steering wheel. Hence, so long as a person is driving (with their hands and not their knees), the system should be continually activated. The only requirement for the system to be able to test a person’s BAC is that a driver has his hands on the wheel (a normal driving behavior).

Sober Steering recently received $1.5 Million from the Ontario government’s Innovation Demonstration Fund to produce prototypes and test later them later this year in about 200 fleet vehicles, such as transport trucks and buses.

Ignition interlock systems are expensive, costing up to approximately $2,000 per vehicle, as opposed to an estimated $200 for the Sober Steering solution. Stay tuned for more updates about this new-age sober driving technology.

This post was intended to provide general information only and is not intended as specific legal advice. You should not rely upon this information alone, but should consult legal counsel regarding the application of the laws and regulations discussed and as applied to your specific case or circumstance.

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By ArizonaDUI.com, February 26, 2010 8:17 am

Flickr User: totalAldo

If you have ever been arrested, that fact will never change. Years from now if a potential employer asks you if you’ve “ever been arrested,” that answer will always be yes. No matter what happens after the arrest—conviction, acquittal, or dismissal—the arrest still happened.

If in fact, you were arrested for a DUI and convicted, the DUI can stay on your record indefinitely. Most people believe that a DUI will automatically be removed from your record after a certain period of time, but that is not always the case.

Many States have laws in place that will keep a DUI on your record for a certain number of years, while other States do not have such laws and a DUI can stay on your record forever in one of these States.

If you are an adult when you are arrested and convicted of a misdemeanor (in this case—your DUI), it remains. You may file a motion to set aside the judgment, which is a way to expunge the criminal misdemeanor conviction from your record.

If this is granted and someone performs a background check on you, they will not find it. When they perform a detailed criminal background search, they will see the charge & conviction but that it was set aside.

If you have been convicted of a DUI, you are going to run into situations from time to time where you will have to show your DUI record.

The most obvious example is when applying for a job that requires you to drive a company vehicle. In a case like this, an employer is going to want to check your driving record.

There are many employment opportunities out there that you can still land even if you’ve been convicted of a DUI.

Don’t allow a DUI conviction to control your life forever. Find out from your local DMV office when you can file the necessary paperwork to expunge your record.

If you find yourself in a situation where you just don’t know how to proceed in clearing your DUI from your record, it is strongly suggested that you seek out a qualified DUI attorney who can help expunge your record.

This post was intended to provide general information only and is not intended as specific legal advice. You should not rely upon this information alone, but should consult legal counsel regarding the application of the laws and regulations discussed and as applied to your specific case or circumstance.

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By ArizonaDUI.com, February 25, 2010 9:06 am

It’s not a bad idea to buy an alcohol breath tester—more commonly known as a Breathalyzer—to have for your own personal use. They can be a great tool for everyone, not just police.

Because a person’s blood alcohol content (BAC) varies based on so many different factors (i.e. weight, muscle mass, recently consumed food, etc.), it’s hard for people to really ever truly know just how much alcohol is affecting their bodies on any given occasion.

That sounds all fine and dandy and it seems that owning a Breathalyzer can be a wise decision. In fact, owning a Breathalyzer may land you the MVP title because everyone will come to you and want to test their BAC levels before deciding to drive or catch a ride home.

So it seems like a no-brainer to have this device as an efficient and smart way to measure your BAC levels, but you want to know if consumer models are accurate and reliable.

While breathalyzers have certain levels of accuracy, they are generally not accepted as a completely accurate way of measuring a person’s blood alcohol content. Therefore, trust should not be placed in any Breathalyzer that a person is below any legal limit, or is “sober.” Breathalyzers can be misused, misread, and miscalibrated—consumer models as well as the ‘more professional ones’ police use.

Develop realistic expectations about the accuracy of breathalyzers and from there, determine whether purchasing one is still something you feel is a wise move.

Flickr User: Morgan.Davis

Depending on how much you plan to rely on a Breathalyzer and how accurate you want it to be, you can decide to purchase an inexpensive Breathalyzer, or a more expensive model. You may find that a cheap Breathalyzer, with a higher tolerance of error suits your needs. The least expensive breathalyzers start at around seventy dollars. There are more expensive breathalyzers available, with a greater degree of accuracy. More expensive breathalyzers analyze the breath sample more thoroughly, and usually have more advanced sensors. These breathalyzers cost anywhere between 120 to 200 dollars or more.

If you decide you want to purchase one, a good place to start looking at breathalyzers is www.breathalyzer.net. Many of the models sold there have been FDA approved, are DOT-approved and many law enforcement agencies use these testers for preliminary screening of DUI suspects. These breathalyzers offer many benefits, including low cost, low power consumption and small size.

This post was intended to provide general information only and is not intended as specific legal advice. You should not rely upon this information alone, but should consult legal counsel regarding the application of the laws and regulations discussed and as applied to your specific case or circumstance.

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By ArizonaDUI.com, February 22, 2010 10:58 am

Flickr User: Andre Charland

For first-time offenders, DUIs will generally be considered as misdemeanors and punishment usually involves fines, suspension of one’s driving privileges and attendance in an alcoholic education course. But things start to go downhill rapidly when repeat offenses start to accumulate. So, what exactly happens when you get a repeat DUI offense in the state of Arizona? Well, that depends on just how much you had been drinking when you got that second defense. The higher your blood alcohol level (BAC) when you were stopped for the second DUI offense, the more trouble you may have landed yourself in.

Second Offense Impaired to the Slightest Degree (BAC above .080)

• Jail: You could face jail time ranging from 90 to 180 days. Expect to face a minimum of 90 consecutive days in jail. It is possible for the court to suspend 60 of the 90 days in jail if you successfully complete all recommended treatment and counseling, so you best be on your best behavior!
• Fines & Costs: You will be fined approximately $3,500.00 for a second DUI offense, and will additionally be expected to pay jail costs and fines. The more jail time imposed the greater the additional costs. Know that it is very likely that jail costs will amount to thousands of additional dollars on top of jail costs. Basically…it won’t be cheap!
• License: Your drivers’ license will be revoked for one year. Reinstatement of your license is not automatic at the end of the 12-month period. During this time frame, you are not eligible for a work permit (ie-ability to drive car to and from work).
• Counseling: 
If convicted you must get a substance abuse evaluation and comply with any recommendation or be subject to additional jail time.
• Probation: 
You may be placed on probation for up to five years.
• Community Service: 
You will be provided a court order for a minimum of 30 hours of community service. The court may also impose other fines it sees fit.
• MADD Victims’ Impact Panel: 
The court may order you to attend one or more sessions of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving Victims Impact Panel.
• Ignition Interlock Device: 
This device will be required for 12 months after license reinstatement.

If you are arrested for a second offense DUI and have a BAC level higher than .080, the penalties only become more severe. You could serve a maximum of two years in jail and could end up owing the court in excess of $22,000.

If getting your first DUI isn’t bad enough, getting a second DUI offense is no joke! It could land you in some serious debt and serious trouble. It’s definitely something you want to avoid at all costs.

This post was intended to provide general information only and is not intended as specific legal advice. You should not rely upon this information alone, but should consult legal counsel regarding the application of the laws and regulations discussed and as applied to your specific case or circumstance.

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By ArizonaDUI.com, February 19, 2010 11:07 am

Flickr User: aussiegall

Being arrested for a DUI can be a very scary experience, but it’s important to remain calm and try to stay in control of your situation. Becoming angry, emotional or defensive won’t help your case but rather, will probably make the arresting officer more apt to put you behind bars. Becoming hot-headed may also make it more difficult for a lawyer to later effectively argue your defense in court to prove your innocence or get the charges reduced.

Once arrested for a DUI, it is wise to seek counsel immediately. DUI defense lawyers have specialty training and knowledge that can really help get you out of the charges or help get you minimal punishment. The single most important thing you can do for yourself is to find a qualified attorney who knows DUI law.

Expect the DUI lawyer to initiate a comprehensive interview with you before accepting your case. The information exchanged between you and your potential defense lawyer is completely confidential, so feel free to share every tiny detail and be honest with this person.

The lawyer will review all of the written documents pertaining to the arrest, the breath or blood test report, and the traffic ticket that was written. This initial interview should last approximately an hour. The lawyer will discuss every aspect of your DUI case and the applicable laws at this time.

If the lawyer decides to accept your case, he or she will then present you with a detailed written contract for your review. If you agree to the terms of the contract, you will then become the attorney’s client and the attorney will then start the representation process.

In every state, when someone is arrested for DUI, there are two jurisdictions to defend oneself against—the court and the DMV. The court will try to give you fines and punish you in other ways, and the DMV will try to take away your driving privileges.

There are strict time limits within which the DMV must be contacted to avoid automatic license suspension. Your lawyer should be able to advise you on such details.

Really, this is the tip of the iceberg, as DUI arrests can be very sticky situations. Stay calm and contact a DUI lawyer to ensure you’re best representing yourself and what took place the night you got arrested for DUI.

This post was intended to provide general information only and is not intended as specific legal advice. You should not rely upon this information alone, but should consult legal counsel regarding the application of the laws and regulations discussed and as applied to your specific case or circumstance.

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By ArizonaDUI.com, February 18, 2010 12:05 pm

Flickr user: Francisco Javier Martín

In short, the way to ‘beat’ a DUI is to discredit the evidence. There are many ways to discredit the DUI case brought against you, and a qualified DUI attorney will know the most effective ways to try to get you out of a DUI.

A prosecution attorney will try to prove DUI in one of two ways. One way is to attack the driver’s mental and physical condition by presenting evidence that shows the driver was impaired because of alcohol consumption. The second way is by concentrating on the driver’s blood-alcohol content and not focusing on the driver’s physical or mental condition. However, it is possible the prosecutor will use both ways in the same case.

DUI cases basically center on four kinds of evidence: the physical appearance of the driver, the driving pattern, the results of a chemical test, and the results of a field sobriety test. All of them are subject to debate in a variety of ways, and this is where beating a DUI case happens.

Starting with the driving pattern—if the defendant pulled over promptly, used his turn signal and parked safely, it could be well argued that the driving pattern did not indicate any impairment.

Also open to debate, the field sobriety test is not always open and closed evidence. A defense attorney might argue that the defendant shouldn’t have to take a test outside with distractions like traffic rushing by but rather he/she should get to take tests in a quiet room, or that getting 10% of the answers wrong shouldn’t necessarily result in a failing grade.

Then there is the argument about mental impairment being evidence of physical impairment. Experts on both sides agree that when alcohol is consumed, mental impairment is evidenced before physical impairment becomes evident. The prosecution may prove physical impairment, but if a defense attorney can discredit the presence of mental impairment, he may rightfully assert that the alleged physical impairment was the result not of alcohol but of something else, like injury or fatigue.

A defense attorney can also beat a DUI by attacking the blood sample. Among other errors, if too much time elapses between the blood being drawn and being measured, it can result in an artificially increased blood-alcohol content (BAC) reading. This is because blood can ferment, thus increasing the amount of alcohol in the sample, thus wrongly raising the BAC.

There are more then 5 Ways to Beat a DUI, but here a few to keep in mind…

1. STANDARD FIELD SOBRIETY TESTING IS INACCURATE – in healthy individuals, the one-leg stand test is only 65% accurate, and the walk-and-turn test is only 68% accurate in determining if a person is under the influence. Those persons with injuries, medical conditions, 50 pounds or greater overweight, and 65 years or older cannot be validly judged by these tests.
2. NON-STANDARDIZED FIELD TESTS ARE INVALID – neither the Federal Government (NHTSA) nor medical science considers touching your finger to your nose, or saying the alphabet, or counting backwards, as valid sobriety tests.
3. BREATH TESTING IS INACCURATE – virtually all experts concede that one breath test alone is unreliable. Breath testing is subject to various inaccuracies, including a variance as much s +/- 12.5%, non-specificity for ethanol, etc.
4. BREATHALYZER MACHINE MALFUNCTIONS – Most states specify that if there is a malfunction or repair of the breath test instrument within a certain period of time before or after a suspect’s breath test, the results of the suspect’s test are presumed invalid.
5. INTERFERING SUBSTANCES – Many items contain forms of alcohol, which may cause false results, such as asthma spray, cough drops, paints, fingernail polish. These items can cause the breath results to be invalid.

This post was intended to provide general information only and is not intended as specific legal advice. You should not rely upon this information alone, but should consult legal counsel regarding the application of the laws and regulations discussed and as applied to your specific case or circumstance.

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By ArizonaDUI.com, February 16, 2010 10:11 am

Flickr user: kevindooley

A single DUI offense should not inhibit your ability to receive financial aid from the government or any higher education institution. Remember that your first DUI offense will not be considered a felony in most cases (unless you seriously injured or killed someone as a result of your drunk driving). Instead, your first DUI offense will often be considered a misdemeanor and should not prevent you from receiving financial aid to attend college.

A repeat offense, however, may muddy the waters. It is quite possible that individual institutions may decide to withhold financial aid for repeat DUI offenders based on the university’s specific rules and regulations. If you’ve had repeat DUI convictions, it would be wise to call the financial aid officer at your college and see what he/she says is that college’s stance on DUIs.

If you find that you no longer apply for financial aid from your university, there is still hope. So long as the conviction is not drug-related, you should still be eligible for student aid from the government.

In order to receive federal grant money, make sure to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Anyone hoping to receive grant money from the government needs to fill out this form—DUI or not.

It’s also wise to do some research on the different types of federal grants that may be available to you. There is a whole assortment of scholarship resources out there that you may be eligible for. As crazy as it sounds, there are even specific scholarships available for those who have been convicted of a felony and want to attend college.

If you’ve been unfortunate enough to receive a DUI but are still hopeful of a bright future in college and a successful career afterward…fear not! There are plenty of opportunities awaiting you and plenty of grants with your name on them! Just make sure you take a pro-active approach in finding which scholarships are right for you.

This post was intended to provide general information only and is not intended as specific legal advice. You should not rely upon this information alone, but should consult legal counsel regarding the application of the laws and regulations discussed and as applied to your specific case or circumstance.

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By ArizonaDUI.com, February 15, 2010 3:11 pm

Sadly, the answer is yes; you can be cited and or arrested for a DUI even if you were not driving at the time of the initial police contact. This most often happens when motorists attempt to sleep off the alcohol they drank by sleeping in a parking lot, or pulling their car off the road because they feel they have had too much to drink.

The good news, however, is that it may be difficult for a prosecutor to convict you of a DUI if you were not actually driving the vehicle when the police contacted you. In this situation, it is imperative to have an experienced DUI attorney on your side.

How is it possible for me to get a DUI, even if I was not driving?

In Arizona, the State must prove that you were either driving or were “in actual physical control,” (APC) of the vehicle. In this case, driving a vehicle means that the vehicle was in motion. Actual physical control, or APC, is very different. APC results where the person is, for all intents and purposes, in control of the vehicle and has a present ability to move the vehicle.

Pursuant to case law, various factors (i.e., key in the ignition, hood of the car warm to the touch, your position in the car [behind the wheel vs. in the back seat], your statements regarding driving, etc.) can be used by the State to show that you were in “actual physical control” of the vehicle.

Some example scenarios of this may be that you were sitting in your car with the engine running, trying to cool off, while waiting for your sober ride, during a hot Arizona summer. Or perhaps you pulled off the road to sleep, and left the keys in the ignition. There are many complex nuances concerning the laws of APC.

These cases are often easier than standard DUI cases to win. If you have been cited or arrested for a DUI under “actual physical control” circumstances it is important that you contact an experienced DUI lawyer.