A new Orwellian technology could be used by courts to monitor the consumption of alcohol by alleged drunk drivers. If you are arrested for drunk driving in Michigan, then the court will almost certainly order you to stop drinking. This abstinence from alcohol will be a condition of your bond.…
As originally conceived the United States Supreme Court was intended to be a final check on the police power. And to a lesser extent, so it is with all judges, who collectively form one of our three branches of government. The central goal behind the idea of having three branches…
If you were arrested for drunk driving in Michigan, then you were probably asked to take either a breath or a blood test. Michigan DUI laws require that such blood draws be performed in a “medical environment.” This term is not defined. In some Michigan municipalities the police will summon…
If you are charged with drunk driving in Michigan the prosecutor has a legal and ethical duty to provide your attorney with any evidence that might be helpful to your defense. This includes things like police reports, witness statements, video recordings or chemical tests. This legal obligation was affirmed in…
If you are stopped under suspicion of drunk driving, and your breath test proves you’re not under the influence of alcohol, you still might be arrested for DUI based on drug impairment. This can include prescription medications. It is illegal to drive a vehicle while under the influence of any…
A recent USA Today article describes two different technologies that promise to end the occurrence of drunk driving in Michigan within 5 to 8 years. These include a breath monitoring system that does not require the driver to breathe into a tube, and a sort of fingerprint monitor that measures…
Citing the “grisly toll on the Nation’s roads,” and by opinion dated June 23, 2016, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that the police are not required to obtain a warrant in order to obtain a breath sample. The same is not true of blood test where warrants are…
According to the Government statistics, (National Highway Safety Administration), in the last forty years, the number of drunk drivers on the road is down by more than 70%! However, based on statistics from the last seven years, the number of driver with pot in their system is up by 50%!…
Sleep driving is a well-known side effect of Ambien. Sleep driving is even listed as a side effect of this drug in the product literature. It is nevertheless illegal to be driving under the influence of Ambien. If you are stopped and the police believe that you are under the…
I have written previously in this blog about the unreliability of retrograde extrapolation in drunk driving cases. This is an important topic because state experts in drunk driving cases often will come into court and try to convince the jury that the driver’s blood alcohol at the time of the…