SB 1070 Ruling

 Judge Bolton granted a partial preliminary injunction regarding SB 1070.

Judge Bolton has ruled and the docket entry in USA v. AZ reads:

 “Order granting in part and denying in part the United States’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction.  IT IS FURTHER ORDERED denying the United States’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction as to the following Sections of Senate Bill 1070 (as amended by House Bill 2162): Section 1, Section

 2(A) and (C)-(L), Section 4, the portion of Section 5 creating A.R.S. § 13-2929, the portion creating A.R.S. § 13-2928(A) and (B), and Sections 7-13.  IT IS FURTHER ORDERED preliminarily enjoining of the State of Arizona and Governor Brewer from enforcing the following sections of Senate Bill 1070 (as amended by House Bill 2162): Section

 2(B) creating A.R.S. § 11-1051(B), Section 3 creating A.R.S. § 13-1509, the portion of Section 5 creating A.R.S. § 13-2928 (C), and Section 6 creating A.R.S. § 13-3883(A) (5).” 

 Signed by Judge Susan R. Bolton on 7/28/10.

 For more information visit:

http://aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=32544

Lindsay Lohan to Serve Jail Sentence

“All good things must come to an end.”  Lindsay Lohan has learned this the hard way.  A Los Angeles Superior Court judge found her guilty of violating her parole stemming from her brush with the law in 2007.  Lohan had been ordered to attend an alcohol treatment program after she plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of being under the influence of Cocaine and two counts of driving with a BAC of over .08.  Los Angeles County prosecutors had originally sought a month long jail sentence for Lohan, but Superior Court Judge Marsha Revel had other plans.  After Lohan gave a tear-filled apology to the court, Revel said she “found the apology insincere, similar to someone who cheats and thinks it isn’t cheating if she doesn’t get caught.”  (Associated Press)

Lohan was not detained following the sentence, but she must surrender to the court on July 20^th, 2010.  Lohan will not be ordered to wear her Scram Bracelet in the days before her surrender.  In 2007 Lohan served 84 minutes in Lynwood Jail, where she will serve this new sentence.

As of Saturday July 3rd, halfway through the 4^Th of July holiday, the number of people arrested for drunk driving had already surpassed the entire weekends numbers in 2009.  The Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety reported that 376 people had been arrested, a number which is expected to be even higher by Tuesday, July 6^Th.  One year ago authorities made 350 total DUI arrests for the whole weekend, in total the Arizona Highway Patrol has made 6,658 traffic stops. Compared to 3,671 traffic stops in 2009.  Police Officials cited the state-wide police effort to crack down on DUI offenses in Arizona as 793 officers were pulled from 16 different Arizona DUI Task Forces.  In 2009 only 428 officers were on duty for the Fourth of July weekend.  Police have also kept a running tally of designated drivers as well, so far that number is at 183.  Also the average blood-alcohol content had risen from .149 to .150, as well as the number of citations, 2,567 given in 2010 compared with 1,851 in 2009.

 Here is the breakdown:

Year	2010	2009
DUI Arrests	376*	350
Traffic Stops	6,658	3,761
Officers on Duty	793	428
BAC (Average)	.150	.149

 *Represents the total DUI Arrests as of July 3^rd, 2010.

More and more alcohol-related offenders today may find themselves placed under a different kind of detention.  Alcohol Monitoring Systems invented the SCRAM bracelet to detect alcohol use through a persons sweat.  Essentially the ankle bracelet measures a person’s ethanol vapor through their sweat every 30 minutes; the data is then recorded in an online database, and then analyzed to tell if a person has been drinking.

  In recent news celebrities like Lindsay Lohan have been ordered to wear the bracelet.  AMS also offers a form of home detention that can keep DUI offenders off the streets at time considered to be prime hours for drunk driving, the hours between 12am and 3am.  Proponents of SCRAMx support that the bracelet will keep more and more people out of jail and allow them to contribute positively to society instead of over-populating jails and ballooning state taxes.  Because the offenders pay for the SCRAMx services themselves they are also saving tax payers money.

Arizona State Bill 1070 raises the question: What happens to aliens, legal or not, who are convicted of a DUI in Arizona?  Under Section 237 of the Immigration and Nationality Acts, any crime deemed to involve moral turpitude will result in deportation.  The term moral turpitude is defined as “conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honor and good morals.”  In Arizona an aggravated DUI is considered a crime of moral turpitude and may result in deportation and denial of admissibility for illegal and legal alien residents.  An aggravated DUI conviction for alien residents whether illegal or legal, has resounding consequences.  Once convicted that person will be fingerprinted, photographed, and their information is posted in the national database.  The next time this person attempts to enter the country, their fingerprints and picture will be reviewed and they will be denied entry.  Attempted illegal re-entry will result in immediate deportation and barred entry for one year.

Beauchamp Law Office, P.C. is now offering discounts online for certain cases, including Stages One-Three DUI, Personal Injury cases as well as offering discounts for Veterans and Military members and their families, and members of the National Rifle Association.

 The discounts offered are as follows:

• Military and Family Member Discount 10%
• NRA Member Discount 10%
• 5% to 7.5% discount for Stage One
• 10% discount for Stage Two
• 10% discount for Stage Three
• 25% discount for Personal Injury Cases

Melanie Beauchamp and every one at Beauchamp Law Office, P.C. would like to announce that Beauchamp Law has been certified as a member of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council or WBENC!  WBENC is a national non-profit organization that was founded in 1994 to provide third party certification to women’s business enterprises across the Nation.  Other noteworthy corporate members of WBENC include: AT&T, Bank of America, Microsoft Corporation and Major League Baseball among others.  At Beauchamp Law we are proud to be a member of such a prestigious and productive organization.

Problems are magnified if you don’t have a good attorney to represent you. Please know that we are on your side. Give us a call and we will help fight your case to the best we know how.

With such strict DUI laws, it’s no wonder Arizona jails are seeing an influx of inmates in recent years. But full jail cells mean empty pockets for taxpayers, and Scottsdale city leaders look for ways to trim costs.

Estimated costs for holding a single inmate for one year is at minimum $20,000. Nationwide, billions of dollars are spent to house, clothe and feed inmates, a large majority of whom have committed petty crimes.

So Scottsdale legislators are looking to cut costs and are considering house arrest for those who have been convicted of driving drunk. Ankle monitors may soon be an option for Scottsdale’s convicted drunken drivers.

These home detention programs aren’t new. In fact, Arizona law has allowed a city or town to create such programs for years, and most Valley city courts already have similar programs. But Scottsdale City Court officials are finally ready to make such a program for its jurisdiction.

On a second offense, DUI offenders are sentenced with about 180 days in jail. That’s roughly $9,000 worth of costs for the city to incarcerate that person for that period of time.

The home-detention and electronic-monitoring plan is scheduled to go before the Scottsdale City Council on its April 27 consent agenda. If approved, court officials hope to have a program in place by summer.

Scottsdale is estimated to pay Maricopa County jails about $3.5 million for the coming fiscal year if nothing changes. A home-detention program is projected to save from $600,000 to $1 million per year.

Officials see the advantage in this type of program to be that home detention helps drunken driving offenders keep their jobs and, in turn, they will be more able to reimburse the court for jail costs.

Certain convicted drunken drivers wouldn’t be eligible, such as a violent person or someone who poses any other additional danger. Also ineligible would be anyone with a domestic violence conviction or if they are unemployed. But he estimates as many as half of Scottsdale’s DUI defendants could participate.

A device would be placed on the person’s home telephone line to determine whether the person is home. The ankle bracelet allows the offender to be away a certain number of feet away from the house.

If they are not home when they say they are, the monitoring company makes a call. Then they notify the court that they weren’t in compliance. Offenders would also have to take a breath alcohol test once a day.

Ultimately, home detention is an option in sentencing.

They’re not free. They still have to stay home, but people would better be able to go on with their lives and able to keep their jobs.

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.

The fatality rate in Arizona has reached a record low and is decreasing faster than nearly every other state. Arizona’s rate is down 20 percent.

The earliest year that state-by-state figures were documented was 1975—Arizona’s fatality rate has always hovered well above the national average, but that gap has narrowed in recent years.

One significant reason Arizona is seeing this drop in fatalities can be attributed to Arizona’s tough stance on drunken driving.

We’re all pretty aware that Arizona has some of the toughest drunk-driving laws in the country. While the relationship between an overall decrease in vehicle fatalities and DUI cases cannot be directly correlated, it’s pretty safe to assume that cracking down on drunk driving has helped lower the overall number.

The Transportation Department says that 11,773 people were killed in drunken driving crashes in 2008 for a rate of 0.4 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. In 2007, 13,041 motorists were killed in alcohol-impaired crashes for a rate of 0.43.

Drunken driving fatality rates have fallen in 40 states and the District of Columbia.
Vermont, Wisconsin, Maine, Nebraska, Minnesota, Connecticut, South Dakota, Arizona and the District of Columbia saw fatality rates involving alcohol-linked crashes decline by 20 percent or more.

DUI laws are only one factor that can shape a state’s fatality record. Others include seat belt, helmet and speeding laws and how aggressively they are enforced, not to mention, weather, geography, demographics and tourism.

One more recent implementation in Arizona that may be helping to reduce the number of car crash fatalities are the speed cameras installed along freeways and roads. Fear of getting a ticket from one of the speed cameras may cause drivers to slow and drive more cautiously.

Also, tough laws have been adopted in Arizona with regards to using breath-monitoring ignition interlock devices for offenders.

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.