DUIRelated
Pasco County Deputy Avoids Florida DUI
Off-duty deputy was allowed to go home despite suspicion of drunk driving.
John Daniels, a Pinellas County Florida deputy, was on patrol around 1:00 am when he witnessed a car pass him at a high rate of speed. His radar indicated the vehicle was going 98 in a 45 mph zone. After turning around and giving pursuit, the deputy found the vehicle stopped 20 yards from an intersection with the front passenger outside the vehicle urinating.
Daniels approached the driver, Jose Berrios, and requested driver’s license, proof of insurance and registration. Berrios then identified himself and his passenger as Pasco County deputies. Daniels noted the presence of alcohol and the Pasco County deputies admitted to having consumed “approximately one or two drinks”. Daniels asked Berrios to submit to a breath test to check blood alcohol content, saying if he passed he could drive home and if he failed he could call someone to pick him up. Berrios countered with a request to just call someone for a ride and not submit to the test, which Daniels agreed to.
Instead of a charge of suspicion of driving under the influence in Florida, Daniels’ report of the incident ends with “Disposition: Case closed, solved non-criminal.” A Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson said the incident is being reviewed. A spokesperson with the Pasco County Sheriff’s Department also indicated that the deputies involved are under investigation.
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MADD Volunteers to Look For Florida DUI Offenders
Program calls for MADD observers to help police spot drunk drivers in Florida.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving has announced a program they developed that calls for partnerships with law enforcement to report potential drunk drivers. Called a ‘first in the nation’, MADD will work with the Manatee County Florida Sheriff’s Department to test the program.
MADD calls the initiative ‘TOP’ or Traffic Observation Program. It calls for teams of two trained observers to travel the roads looking for signs of possible Florida DUI offenses. When they spot suspected drunk drivers, the teams will contact the Manatee County Sheriff’s Department. The observers will be in personal, unmarked vehicles using their own cell phones.
‘TOP’ will be initiated over the Labor Day weekend and continued every weekend and on some weeknights for six months, after which the Florida pilot program will be evaluated. MADD has said it will be collecting its own data on response times, percentage of arrests and the ratio of observations to interceptions. There is no indication the citizen action will report the accuracy of their observations in terms of false arrests or unwarranted traffic stops.
A MADD spokesperson said they are “only doing what every citizen could and should do.”
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Florida DUI Defense Attorney Completes National Symposium
Florida DUI Defense Attorney Completes National Symposium.
DUI Defense lawyer Gerald Roden recently completed a three day event conducted by the National College of DUI Defense. Held at the Harvard Law School, the continuing legal education symposium taught advanced skills to attorneys who limit their practices to DUI defense.
Topics at this year’s event included identifying problems with breath testing equipment, emerging trial strategies and reviewing recent court decisions.
Gerald Roden is a member of DUI.com | DWI.com. He defends cases of driving under the influence on Treasure Coast and Space Coast, Florida. Mr. Roden has offices Stuart, Fort Pierce, Melbourne and Vero Beach, Florida.
Do you need to hire a FL DUI Lawyer in Fort Pierce, Florida or surrounding areas?
Equipment Inspections Issue Could Impact Florida DUI Cases
Procedures not followed in handling of breath test equipment.
An Escambia County judge ruled that breath test results from 19 Florida DUI cases could not be entered into evidence. The Intoxilyzer 8000 used to determine the defendants’ blood alcohol content had not been properly handled and maintained, which could have altered the test results.
The equipment in question registered problems while testing breath samples in the county jail. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is responsible for maintenance, calibration and records keeping for the breath testing equipment, and the regional alcohol-program director for FDLE took the machine from the jail to her office to see if environmental issues were causing the error messages. The Intoxilyzer 8000 can give false high readings if the air around the machine is heavy with alcohol or the breathing tube contains residual alcohol. Temperature can also affect the test reading. When the equipment worked in her office, she returned it to the jail with instructions to keep the door open to the holding area for air circulation. A fan was also placed in the room.
According to the FDLE’s own rules, whenever breath test equipment is removed for repair or inspection, it must be recertified. Because that did not happen, the judge ruled that the results gathered from the equipment between February 17 and May 17 could be compromised.
The cases of driving under the influence in Florida will still proceed, though prosecutors must make their case without the breath test results.
If you have been arrested for DUI in FL, you will need to hire a Florida DUI Attorney.
Sheriff’s Office Employee Avoids Florida DUI in Brooksville
No drunk driving charge for finance director because she was not seen behind wheel of truck.
Two witnesses chased but could not keep up with a speeding pick-up truck as it ran cars off the road and even slid through a highway intersection and briefly stopped in a ditch. After briefly losing sight of the truck, the concerned motorists finally caught up to it and found a crumpled street sign, the vehicle on the side of the road and the presumed driver outside the vehicle looking at the bumper.
The woman looking at the truck was Emily Vernon, the finance director for the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office. She got back in the truck before surrendering her keys to one of her chasers, tumbled into a nearby ditch and danced in the road. Police arriving on the scene found two wine carafes, one empty, in the truck, and detected a faint odor of alcohol. Even though Vernon admitted to having consumed half a bottle of wine and to have taken sleeping medication an hour before the accident, police elected not to charge Vernon with driving under the influence in Florida because no witness could confirm that she had been behind the wheel. In the police report, an officer on the scene said that a DUI with property damage was not advisable because there were no accident witnesses.
A sheriff’s supervisor agreed, stating that with no ‘wheel witness’ a case of drunk driving in Hernando County would be difficult to prove in the courtroom. Instead, Vernon, 39, was charged with a single car collision.
She does however still face an internal affairs investigation.
If you have been charged with a Florida DUI in Hernando County you need to hire a Hernando County, FL DUI attorney.
Florida DUI Case With ‘No Driver’ Is Reopened
Case of drunk driving in Manatee County reopened after new witnesses come forward.
Last weekend, the finance director for the Manatee County sheriff’s department was involved in a single car accident. Emily Vernon was clearly intoxicated yet not charged with driving under the influence in Florida because no witness could place her behind the wheel of the vehicle at the time of the accident. Investigators have decided to reopen the case after two new witnesses described details of the scene.
The couple was stopped at an intersection when they saw Vernon’s truck strike a metal road sign and nearly hit them. In the vehicle headlights they witnessed Vernon exit her vehicle and examine the front tires and grill. They then saw two motorists who had been chasing Vernon drive up, and thinking all was under control, left the scene.
Vernon admitted to having consumed alcohol prior to the crash though police did not levy drunk driving charges because there was no ‘wheel witness’ to say that she was actually in physical control of the truck at the time of the accident.
Even with the new witnesses, Manatee County drunk driving defense attorneys say the case will be difficult to prove in a court of law. Filing DUI charges days after an event is unheard of and the law stipulates that a DUI has to occur in an officer’s presence. Evidence was not collected or preserved and no field sobriety tests were conducted. Vernon is also protected by the Florida Accident Report Privilege which states that any information provided by a motorist is immune from penalty until the officer officially declares a DUI criminal investigation.
Vernon, 39, has declined to comment on the case.
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Florida Driving Record
Q: How can I get a copy of my driving record?A: This information is not available via the internet. However, it may be available from private vendors. To obtain a copy of a driving record from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, you can submit a written request which includes your full name, date of birth, social security number, Florida driver license number (if available) and the address where the record is to be sent, along with the appropriate fee to:
Bureau of Records
P.O. Box 5775
Tallahassee, Florida 32314-5775
If you wish to use express mail, you should send your request to:
Bureau of Records
2900 Apalachee Parkway, MS 90
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0575.
Cost for these records:
$2.10 3-year $3.10 7-year (complete)
$3.10 3-year or 7-year (certified)
You may pay by personal check or money order made payable to the Division of Driver Licenses.
Bumper Stickers for DUI Offenders
Bumper Stickers Ordered for Drunk DriversPosted on Wed, Sep. 24, 2003
Associated Press
PENSACOLA, Fla. - Some motorists convicted of drunken driving may have to wear it on the bumper.
A judge in Florida is ordering some of the convicted offenders to place bumper stickers on their cars that ask "How's my driving?" followed by a toll-free telephone number.
The stickers ends with the statement "The judge wants to know!!!"
Escambia County Judge William White said he hopes the bumper stickers, which include an identification number for each driver, will reduce repeat offenses for driving under the influence of alcohol.
"We want to influence people to correct their behavior rather than just use this as sort of a monitoring system," White said.
White said he tried to use bumper stickers saying only "Convicted DUI" in the past simply to shame violators. He hopes the call-in stickers will be a stronger deterrent.
In late August he began ordering motorists convicted of drunken driving to pay an annual fee of $50 to enroll in the monitoring system offered by the I Saw You Safety and Scholarship Foundation as a condition of probation.
The Pensacola-based foundation provides the same service to parents of teenage drivers, borrowing the idea from trucking companies that use similar stickers to monitor their drivers.
I See You plans to donate half of its enrollment fees to scholarships for victims of drunken drivers.
The program has been approved for the 1st Judicial Circuit, which covers four counties in the Florida Panhandle, and some other judges are beginning to use it, foundation spokesman David Richbourg said Monday. He said legislation also is being sought to make the program mandatory across the state, but critics have questioned the tactic.
"I see this as providing very little deterrent," Pensacola lawyer Richard Alvoid said. "Punishment should be enough rather than also shaming people."
University of West Florida student David Blume agrees.
"It's like a scarlet letter," Blume said. "If you know you could go to jail from drunk driving, I don't see why a bumper sticker would be more of a deterrent."
White said embarrassment "comes with the turf when you're committing crimes."
Doug Meyers, an insurance adjuster from nearby Pace, said the shame is worth it if prevents traffic deaths.
"If people are embarrassed, they shouldn't drink and drive," Meyers said.
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Offenders Tagged with DUI Stickers
Others Can Call, Report Driving to Monitors
Published Monday, September 22, 2003
By Gina Pace
News Journal Correspondent
An Escambia County judge is using a dose of public shame to help keep drunken drivers off the roads.
Judge William White routinely is requiring those convicted of driving under the influence to attach a red and yellow bumper sticker that reads: "How is my driving? Call Toll-Free 1-866-I- SAW-YOU The Judge wants to know!!!"
He hopes it will reduce repeat offenses and ultimately reduce the number of DUIs.
"I am open to new ideas that might assist in reducing the number of DUIs and recidivism," White said. "We want to influence people to correct their behavior rather than just use this as a sort of monitoring system."
The service is operated by the I Saw You Safety and Scholarship Foundation, a Pensacola-based organization. The foundation monitors calls to the toll-free number from the public and notifies law enforcement if necessary.
"Bumper stickers asking about driving have reduced accidents in commercial trucking by 50 percent," said David Richbourg, the foundation's director of marketing and media relations. `'We created a program for teen drivers, and we have come up with other applications for our monitoring service, such as impaired drivers."
White tried using bumper stickers in the past but said they were problematic because there was no monitoring system, and the old stickers read "Convicted DUI." The new bumper stickers could be used for other driving, alcohol or drug offenses. However, since White started using I SAW YOU stickers in late August, they have been issued only in DUI cases as a condition of parole.
White is the only judge using the decals. Kim Skievaski, chief judge of the First Judicial Circuit, approved the decals for use as a sentencing tool.
Offenders must pay $50 per year that they are enrolled in the decal program. Usual probation periods for DUIs last for six months to one year. Decals must be placed on all household cars.
The safety foundation plans to donate half of enrollment fees to scholarships for victims of drunken driving.
Jerry Fifer, a member of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and a victim of a drunken driving accident, fully supports the initiative.
"I think it's a great deterrent once people realize it is going to get smacked on their cars," he said. "I spoke at Pace High School and showed the bumper sticker, and one student said, `Mom or Dad better not get one because it would end up on my car.' It will help if people in families are pressuring each other not to drink and drive."
But other think the stickers cast an unnecessary stigma on the person driving.
"I see this as providing very little deterrent," said Pensacola attorney Richard Alvoid. "Punishment should be enough rather than also shaming people."
University of West Florida student David Blume agrees.
"It's like a scarlet letter," Blume said. "If you know you could go to jail for drunk driving, I don't see why a bumper sticker would be more of a deterrent."
White thinks that embarrassment "comes with the turf when you're committing crimes."
"If it's a wholly distasteful experience, they may make the decision that they won't do this again," he said.
Doug Meyers, an independent insurance adjuster from Pace, thinks the shame those convicted would face is worth it if the policy can prevent fatalities.
"If people are embarrassed, they shouldn't drink and drive," he said.
White said the sticker program is worth an experiment.
"This doesn't cost a lot. It's embarrassing, but if it results in a few lives saved, it is pretty minimal," White said. "Maybe one of these days we'll find something that will be a solution."
