Maryland DUI Lawyer Blog

Ask any cop and they will tell you, "quotas, no way! We don't have 'em and we don't use em". However, certain cops seem to have an unusually high arrest record for alleged DUI offenders.

There are recent cases out of Florida and now Illinois with cops making up evidence in order to arrest innocent people and charge them with DUI. In fact, an officer in Illinois was recently sued by a citizen that was arrested and charged with DUI as he left an establishment and prior to driving his car. He was given field sobriety tests at the station and they were inconclusive. He sued and the cop was suspended for a day and subsequently placed on a desk. Many of the cops cases were dismissed.

I have defended persons charged with DUI after having blown a .04 and in one instance a .02! The .02 was quickly dropped in court and then changed to a drugged driving charge (with no evidence whatsoever) and then subsequently dropped all together in a subsequent court appearance.

Ask a Cop, there are no quotas for DUI arrests, but the overwhelmingly aggressive attitudes towards citizen drivers says otherwise, especially when it comes to BAC numbers less than .07. The law may say the legal limit is .08 but I can surely attest to the fact that the police utilize a zero tolerance policy and arrest on any number and let the court and the lawyers sort the details out later after the arrest, embarrassment and all the attendant circumstances. After all, while your number maybe low- but after attempting field sobriety tests on the side of the road, under close "objective" police scrutiny, there will plenty of evidence with which to attempt to convict you.

Bear that in mind next time you have a drink with dinner and think you are OK to drive. Remember, there is no legal obligation to perform roadside agility exercises and if you do, you perform at your own peril, under dubious circumstances, before a biased audience.

Posted by Bruce M. Robinson | Permalink | Email This Post

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Day to day I don't have any particular agenda regarding what to write about but instead when I'm in DUI court, things seem to happen which prompt me to write a post. Today I was in court in Anne Arundel County, Maryland and listened to a case which was called before mine. The gentleman was apparently weaving in his vehicle while he was towing a boat. The suspect was stopped and refused to blow in the State's breath machine and he refused to engage in the State's roadside gymnastic exercises. (Hurray for this man)!! That is, upon being pulled over the suspect was smart enough to let the police do their job without giving the police all kinds of evidence to use against him. DUI defense attorneys do not see too many cases like that.

Anyway, in court the suspect's attorney elected not to try the case based on these facts. Instead the attorney simply plead the defendant out to a guilty charge and it was over. The client was placed on probation and had to complete all the requirements of same and may or may not have even known what type of case he had. (By the way, while in the process of pleading the case out the attorney engaged in a loud and heated argument with the judge's bailiff on two separate occasions. The judge was very nice, a different judge may have knocked the lawyer back on his heels for this type behavior.) Frequently when I'm in court I'll see cases that are plead out that really should not be. Cases where client's plead guilty but instead should plead not guilty and should fight their case. Many cases can actually be won if an effort to fight is made. That is, if you do not fight, you cannever win.

The point of this entry is that you really need to know something about the attorney you are hiring. You need to be prepared to spend a descent amount of money for fair representation. That is, if you do not pay enough to be represented, you won't be, you will just be plead out. Now sometimes a good result may be reached by pleading, there is nothing wrong with that if 1. there is a decent deal on the table and 2. you don't have a decent defense. But in cases like the one I saw today, there was a decent defense and it should have been tried. Heck, if the attorney lost the case, he would have ended up right where he started and at least he would have taken a "shot at the ring" on behalf of his client.

I had a DUI case with this very same judge earlier this year. My facts were much worse in that my, under the age of 21 client, had an accident, there were drugs found on him and he blew a .15. I tried my case before this judge and got the drugs suppressed and I kept the .15 out of evidence. Result: Not guilty of possession and not guilty of DUI. My point is- one has to be ready to fight in order to accomplish anything worth while.

Continue reading "How to select a Maryland DUI Defense Lawyer" »

Posted by Bruce M. Robinson | Permalink | Email This Post

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I recently concluded a case for a lady who blew a .19, she was a diabetic and was stopped in her car while racing home, above the speed limit and blowing through lights in order to get to her meter to test her sugar levels. She had insulin injections with her but no meter. When arrested she was noted to have slurred speech, nystagmus, and was unsteady on her feet.

Now, how does a depressed blood sugar level present itself? Known as hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) a person will have slurred speech, poor balance, impaired motor control, staggering, drowsiness, flushed face and will possibly be disoriented. All of the normal things the cops look for. They see it in a person suffering from this condition and then make an arrest for DUI. In my case, the lady told the officer why she was racing home and what she needed but naturally her claims fell on deaf ears.

So off to the station house we go for a breath test which will surely exonerate our young client right? Wrong! As previously discussed the infra red device in the intox is designed to pick up the molecular structure of ethanol alcohol. Unfortunately for this driver, a similar molecular structure exists in a wide variety of breath constituents known as the "methyl group" and will be picked up and identified by the magic box on the cops desk as ethanol alcohol and used against the driver.

In this case, the diabetic has acetone on her breath. Acetone on the breath is a well documented by-product of hypoglycemia. The machine will register the acetone in the breath and yield a BAC reading when the driver may have consumed no alcohol or it will magnify the BAC where she has consumed alcohol.

The result for this particular driver was that her BAC number was thrown out at the administrative hearing and she received an unsupervised probation in Court.

Posted by Bruce M. Robinson | Permalink | Email This Post

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A client recently contacted me to represent him for DUI for driving his vehicle on strictly private property. That is, he was attempting to get his vehicle out of a wooded area when arrested. (How the vehicle got in the wooded area in the first place is beyond the scope of this blog). I have also documented a number of DUI or alcohol related offenses on "vehicles" other than cars. So I thought I would clear up the confusion regarding where exactly you can drive in the state of Maryland and what you can operate after having consumed alcohol.

First the where may I drive? The answer is nowhere. (Trans. 11-127) Maryland's alcohol statute 21-902 and the transportation section 16-205.1 have been interpreted by the courts to mean that a driver may not operate a vehicle anywhere in this state, public or private, after having consumed significant alcohol. There is a case on point that says operating a motor vehicle on one's own private while over a .08 BAC is sufficient to be violative of Maryland's statute. Now this can be contrasted with driving on a suspended license which only applies to public property or private property used by the public at large.

Second, what may I drive? A bicycle, horse, scooter, tricycle? Answer: None of the above. The legislature has drafted the definition of vehicle in the transportation article 11-176 to mean any device in which a person or property may be pulled or towed on a highway. A highway is expansively defined as essentially anyplace traffic may go. It has been interpreted to include private land. Thus, for those with a desire to know, almost any vehicle, including a wagon, but excluding a personal device designed to transport a handicapped person, would be enough to satisfy the statute. Operating this vehicle any place in the State, even completely private property would likewise be enough to satisfy the statute.

Posted by Bruce M. Robinson | Permalink | Email This Post

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So what are my Maryland DUI rights anyway when I get pulled over late on a Saturday night for a suspected DUI/DWI infraction? Some friends tell me to blow others say don't blow, do the field sobriety tests, don't do the tests, answer questions, don't answer questions and what about my Miranda rights and don't the police have to advise me of them?

Alright, here it is! When stopped by a police officer, he must have a legal basis to stop your car. He will always come up with a reason to stop you, but many times we can challenge that. Now, you have been stopped, once the officer smells alcohol on your breath, you are basically cooked! He is going to arrest you. Everything he does from this point on is geared towards obtaining evidence to use against you in Court. That is important, everything from here on is engineered to use against you in court!

The cop does not present it that way, he tells you that if you will do the tests (we like to refer to them as exercises or roadside gymnastics) that he might be able to let you go. It is highly unlikely this is going to happen. The DUI coordination exercises are relatively complicated for a sober person to perform much less anybody that has had a drink or is scared late at night, or is not dressed properly to attempt them or is uncomfortable on the side of the highway. Each time you make a minor mistake on the DUI exercise, he writes that down and uses it against you in court. By the time you have completed all the exercises, the cop has quite a little arsenal to use against you; and oh yes, you are being arrested and taken to the station where more evidence will be gathered to use against you. Again, the reason for the DUI arrest is largely because of the odor of alcohol on your breath, the field sobriety exercises were just the icing on the cake to arrest you.

The field sobriety exercises consist of the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, an eye test looking for jerking of the pupil, the walk and turn test, wherein you are told to walk on a line, heel touching toe and turn around and come back. and the one leg stand, where you are asked to balance on one leg for thirty seconds without falling over. Good luck.

Continue reading "What are my Maryland DUI Rights?" »

Posted by Bruce M. Robinson | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: The DUI Arrest

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