DUI Washington Blog

I ran across a DUI thread on a travel site recently. In it, one of the guests wrote that they were quite concerned about filling out a visa application to China. Should they admit on the application that they had a criminal record because they had been convicted of a DUI?

Some of the participants on the forum advised dishonesty because China doesn’t have the same attitude toward DUI as some countries such as Canada do. Others claimed it didn’t matter because China doesn’t do a criminal background check when your apply for a visitor’s visa. One went so far as to suggest that anyone who was honest belonged to a minority group.

All such advice is ill advice. First, it is important to contact an attorney with experience in dealing with the country and their immigration policies.  In the past, we have found that honesty when dealing with a foreign country is always the best policy. We side with the guest who stated that he/she admitted to the two DUIs on record and included a brief explanation of what had happened. When the visa is approved, you can know that you have no worries that the discovery that you entered false information on your application will come back to cause problems in the future.

You never know where a first visit to a foreign country may lead. The guest with the two DUIs wanted to teach English in China for a year. China issued the visa, despite her DUIs.

While complete honesty about DUIs in your record could result in the denial of a travel visa to some countries, we maintain that honesty is the best policy. Of course, it is best when you enlist the aid of a DUI attorney as soon as possible after you are stopped for a suspected DUI. In many cases, you may be able to avoid a DUI record entirely.

Residents of Washington, especially the Seattle area may turn to Burg Criminal Defense for honest and compassionate DUI attorney services.

Even Over-the-Counter Meds can Cause Drug DUI Trouble

DUI charges aren’t always for alcohol. They can also relate to the suspicion that a driver is under the influence of a chemical substance. Blood work can come back allegedly revealing the presence of marijuana, cocaine, meth amphetamine or some other substance. The drug may be legal, but if it is known to affect a person’s mental or physical capacities, a DUI charge may follow.

We have represented clients who were charged with DUI after using an over-the-counter cold medication. Believe it or not, zealous district attorneys have even sought DUI convictions for drivers whose coffee consumption resulted in a perceived impairment on the part of the arresting officer.

So what does it mean to be “under the influence” of a drug when you are behind the wheel? Most states, including Washington, recognize a drug as something that is capable of affecting the nervous system, brain, or muscles of driver, to the point where it is noticeable and affects a driver’s ability to drive his or her vehicle in the manner that compares to an ordinary driver in similar road conditions.

In Washington State, the Department of Motor Vehicles exercises jurisdiction over both alcohol and drug related DUIs. As part of this state’s aggressive stance against drug DUIs, the state employs drug recognition experts whom the state claims has special training in how to evaluate drug DUI suspects. The opinions of these “experts” are used to prosecute those who are accused of driving under the influence of drugs.

There are seven categories of drugs known to impact the central nervous system (CNS).

1. CNS depressants have a similar effect as alcohol. They slow the brain and body down. Barbituates, tranquilizers and anti-depressants fall in this category.
2. CNS stimulants have an opposite effect as alcohol. They speed everything up. Cocaine, “Crack”, Amphetamines and Methamphetamine (“Crank”) fall into this category.
3. Hallucinogens change the perception of reality. LSD, Peyote, Psilocybin and MDMA (Ecstasy) fall in this category.
4. Dissociative anesthetics cut off the brain’s ability to perceive pain. PCP is the most common dissociative anesthetic.
5. Narcotic analgesics not only relieve pain, they produce euphoria and other mood changes. The most commonly known are Opium, Codeine, Heroin, Demerol, Darvon, Morphine, Methadone, Vicodin and OxyContin.
6. Inhalants are mind-altering gasses that can be inhaled. Toluene, plastic cement, oil-based paint, gasoline, paint thinner, and hair sprays are common anesthetic gases.
7. Cannabis (marijuana) distorts perception and impairs coordination. It also causes difficulty in thinking and problem solving.

If any of these substances are found in a driver’s blood after a DUI, Washington State prosecutors are going to take it very seriously. That is why is so vital to hire a DUI attorney with drug DUI experience. The prosecution is going to seek to prove that drugs impaired the driver’s abilities using the same tools used in an alcohol case, by pointing to circumstantial evidence.

Hire a DUI Attorney with Real Know-how.

When you hire a DUI attorney with real know-how, what might seem damning evidence to you may prove to argue for you. Circumstantial evidence is just that—circumstantial. It doesn’t always prove what the prosecutor wants it to. The prosecution may produce its drug recognition experts, but a DUI drug attorney will have the knowledge needed to point out the loopholes in the testimony.

Proving the level of impairment is still a very inexact science. It depends almost entirely upon the recorded statement of the arresting officer regarding the physical appearance, performance of field sobriety tests, observed driving behavior, incriminating statements and behavior at time of the arrest. There are no standards available.

Blood and urine tests aren’t definitive in many cases as well. While marijuana is usually identifiable, other drugs don’t always leave a clear marker to their identity. It is also worth noting that marijuana remains in the blood for weeks, so testing could falsely accuse a driver of being under influence when he or she isn’t. The mere presence of a drug in the blood or urine does not prove that enough of the drug was taken to cause mental and physical impairment.

How to Handle a DUI Arrest.

If you are arrested for a suspected drug DUI, expect for the arresting officer, or one of Washington’s drug recognition experts to record information about your pupil size, blood pressure, and pulse rate. Expect to have your arms examined for evidence of needle use. You can also expect to be pressured into admitting your drug use. Remember that something as small as admitting you took cold medicine could be used against you, so ask to speak with a DUI attorney before speaking with anyone. The less you say, the better.

Remain polite, yet don’t try to extricate yourself from the situation on your own. There are many reasons for an apparent drug DUI that have nothing to do with the use of a chemical substance. Seek the assistance of a criminal defense drug DUI attorney. It will make a difference for your future.

RCW 46.61.140 informs Washingtonians that there are rules to observe when a roadway has been divided into two or more clearly marked lanes. The law informs us that a vehicle needs to remain “as nearly as practicable entirely within a single lane” and only move out of that lane when the driver has determined that it is safe to do so.

This is interesting wording. It suggests that the Washington State legislature knows that there are road conditions that will make it impossible for a driver to always keep his or her vehicle entirely within a single lane. This was highlighted a few years ago in the case of State v. Prado. Prado had crossed over a lane divider by the width of two tires on a highway off ramp. He was pulled over and arrested.

Washington State’s Court of Appeals  concluded that in Prado’s case, a brief incursion over the lane line did not justify the officer pulling him over for a traffic stop. The Court found that a momentary lapse is not a legitimate basis for a traffic stop.

At the same time, if the officer had noted other traffic violations at the same time or behavior suggesting that the driver was impaired, this would have been a legitimate reason for a traffic stop.

Repeated evidence of weaving back and forth within the single lane may still be considered sufficient reason for an officer to stop a vehicle, but if you briefly cross outside your own lane of travel, Washington’s Court of Appeals has ruled that an officer cannot use this as the sole reason for pulling you over.

If you suspect that you have been wrongfully pulled over for violation of Washington’s lane travel statute, contact an experienced DUI attorney as soon as possible. The attorneys at Burg Criminal Defense have the experience you need to represent you if you are facing a DUI charge.

A review of recent DUI news highlights one of the reasons it is so important to hire a DUI attorney when you are charged with a DUI. Getting charged with a DUI can close the doors to employment as a Forsyth, GA man learned. When he applied for an opening in the City of Macon Fire Department, he found that he needed a driver’s license for the position which included driving the fire truck and ambulances for the EMT unit.

The Decision to Hire a DUI Attorney Saved Job.

He had recently been charged with a DUI which would have stripped him of his driving privileges upon conviction of the charge. Fortunately, he had hired a DUI attorney to represent him. After negotiations with the D.A.’s office, his DUI attorney was able to get his charges reduced to reckless driving. He was able to fill the opening and now has a job.

Paying for a DUI attorney was a wise investment in his future. At Burg Criminal Defense, we invest in our client’s futures by seeking the best possible outcome. We don’t see DUI as proof that our clients are bad people who deserve anything the Courts can throw at them. Rather, we are here to facilitate good people getting past their DUI and getting on with productive lives.

There is hope after a DUI. Burg Criminal Defense is here to help our clients experience that hope.

Once in a while we see a DUI case that would provide a real laugh if we didn’t represent DUI clients. The story of one creative Minnesota man is just such an example. After having his driver’s license revoked for DUI, a Proctor, Minnesota man turned his La-Z-Boy recliner into a motorized vehicle.

The man powered his recliner with a lawnmower engine, added a steering column, and decked the chair out with a stereo, cup holders and headlights so he didn’t have to make the trip to the bar on foot or call a cab. Unfortunately, when he left the bar, he had trouble maneuvering his makeshift transport and crashed into one of the cars in the parking lot.

Police estimated that the recliner had the ability to top out at 15 – 20 miles/hr. They confiscated the powered chair and arrested the man for DUI, despite his pleas that they give him a break.

Fortunately, the man’s six month jail sentence was stayed along with half of the $2000 fine on condition that he stay under supervision for two years and participate in a chemical dependency assessment, agree to random testing and 30 days of electronic monitoring.

We can only wonder if this man who does auto body repair work out of his home will get any orders for motorized recliners. Possibly not. The story goes on.

DUI Recliner goes on E-Bay.

When the Proctor Police Department put the motorized recliner up for auction on E-Bay, La-Z-Boy called in its trademark rights. Bidding had already reached $43,700 when the manufacturer took exception to the Police Department’s description of what it called a glorified lawn mower, not a La-Z-Boy. When relisted using verbiage La-Z-Boy would accept, the bidding only went up to $5000.00.

So the man who lost his chair to police impound may, in the end, have gotten the last laugh. He was able to auction photographs of himself in his chair on eBay. Who knows how many he was able to sell?

This story makes us wonder if we’ll be seeing motorized wheelchair or lawnmower DUI’s in the future. If a man can be arrested for DUI because he lost control of his motorized recliner, where will the line be drawn? Really, how much damage could the man have caused? Somehow this whole story reeks of justice run amok, a police department needing to make an example.

Keep DUI Laws in Perspective

As DUI attorneys, Burg Criminal Defense agrees that DUI laws should exist to protect lives first. Protection of property is secondary. The driver of this tripped out recliner posed little threat to other’s lives, and minimal threat to property.  We can only hope that the police departments in the greater Seattle area would have a better sense of humor.

The story of Megan Thompson is the kind of story DUI attorneys like to hear. A 19-year old woman, raised in a good home, did something foolish in 2002—she disobeyed her parents by drinking a few beers and taking some Xanax at a party. Then she got behind the wheel of her parent’s car.

On the way home, she passed out, veered into oncoming traffic and the rest is history. Two lives lost, yet Thompson’s life has arisen from the wreckage. What once was a dream of becoming a trainer at Sea World has become a passion for reaching out to young people like herself.

DUI sentence gives woman a new direction in life.

Thompson spent four years in prison on vehicular manslaughter charges. It changed her purpose in life. She says that the guilt for what she did is a companion that never leaves her. Yet, she is determined to let that companion give direction to her life. She met women in prison whose childhoods were beyond comprehension. It led her to a new career goal—social worker.

The judge who sentenced her has played a role in encouraging her. He sees Thompson as a poster child for good people who have made “really bad choices.” He keeps a drawing Thompson sent him of her wearing a suit of armor. She based her drawing on a passage in the Bible that calls for Christian’s to wear the full armor of God. It is something she intends to remember to do far beyond the end of her parole in December 2011.

DUI charge is not a conviction.

At Burg Criminal Defense, we look at all of our DUI clients as good people. People make mistakes, including DUI. It is our goal to do what we can to make the consequences for a DUI arrest as fair as the law allows. We are on your side. If you are arrested for DUI in the greater Seattle area, contact the DUI attorneys at Burg for compassionate, experienced DUI attorney representation.

A forum posting on Prairielaw.com brings up a very important question. Should Washington consider instituting a lifetime Driver’s License Revocation for drivers that have been convicted of DUI four or more times? Other states have gone this route. Should Washington follow suit?

At Burg Criminal Defense, we feel that this is a harsh sentence that is unworkable in today’s society.  Life without a car is virtually impossible in Washington State.  A man we will call Frank states on the Prairielaw forum that he has been totally sober for the past seven years. He admits that he went through a divorce and job loss that sent him to the bottle at the time he received his fourth DUI in Florida. Fortunately, he was never involved in an accident and in the seven years before he finally gave up drinking entirely and the seven years since that, he has never tried to drive a car. He feels that 14 years without a driver’s license is adequate punishment for his four DUIs.

We would agree. Frank is now actively involved working with alcoholics and drug addicts and trying to prevent others from driving under the influence of both alcohol and drugs.

Frank rightly points out that there are many forms of addiction, and stiffer punishment doesn’t always lead to the right behavior. Denying a driver’s license doesn’t necessarily keep a person from getting behind the wheel. In fact, it can cause someone to feel that all hope is lost. Irrational laws can create irrational behavior.

There are better DUI solutions than revoking driving privileges for life!

If someone has a drinking problem, ignition interlocks and other monitoring measures make far more sense than revoking driving privileges for life.

We at the Law Offices of Geoffrey Burg believe in hope. We have it for every one of our clients. If you have been charged with a DUI in Washington, we will represent you with compassion and experience. If you need help with treatment, we can point you in that direction while still defending your legal rights.  If you are not in need of treatment, we will steer you in the correct direction.  Under either situation, there is no lifetime ban for driving in Washington State. We are committed to keeping it that way.

Washington state’s Supreme Court declared sobriety checkpoints unconstitutional in 1988, but this hasn’t stopped Gov. Christine Gregoire from asking the state Legislature to authorize police to start setting them up. She is asking residents of the state to trade away some of their driving rights in exchange for what she claims would make them “team players” in Washington’s fight to save lives.  This piece of legislation fortunately died on the way to her desk, preserving some of the rights under Washington’s State Constitution.

U.S. Supreme Court has upheld DUI checkpoints.

Washington state is one of only 11 states that still protects motorists from being pulled over if there is no suspicion of DUI. The state is listed as #40 on a report card Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) issued in November 2009. MADD bases its rankings upon the percent of 2006 driving fatalities that involved a drunk driver in Washington.

Would DUI sobriety checks be good for Washington state?

Sobriety checkpoints do more than deter drunken driving. They become dragnets for catching many other driving offenses. California reports that its checkpoints help them catch everything from unlicensed drivers and cars not covered by insurance to undocumented immigrants. Vehicles are impounded regularly.

But critics in that state point to the fact that more than half of the cars impounded are never claimed. Their owners just can’t afford to do so. Typical costs for towing and impoundment run up to $1200 to $4000.

Hidden DUI agenda?

Impound fees are a lucrative source of income for a city budget. Oxnard, CA raked $600,000 into their general fund in 2009 not including the impound fees generated by using checkpoints. Could city’s like Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia and Vancouver embrace a practice that strips drivers of their right to privacy as a source of income? That DUI checkpoint catches drivers who may be perfectly safe drivers who have forgotten to put their new proof of insurance in the car—a ticket that generate income for the city? We could give more examples, but you get the idea.

Do DUI sobriety checkpoints reduce alcohol related crashes?

Yes, according to MADD. They claim that the Centers for Disease Control reports that the states that use sobriety checkpoints have 20% fewer impaired driving crashes.

Does a reduced DUI accident rate justify loss of liberty?

In our opinion, it does not. Our freedom to travel freely is being challenged from many angles. This is another one. No matter how law-abiding you seek to be, being stopped at a checkpoint can be a nerve-wracking experience. Could your allergies be interpreted as signs of DUI? Could the tremor in your hands caused by your nerves be misinterpreted as well?

Let the police increase their use of DUI emphasis patrols. They have the clear authority to pull over drivers whose driving appears unsafe. Let the rest of us use the roads without fear of being stopped without reason.

Is King County Going To See Them in Court Again?

After over two years of refusing to accept breath-test evidence in King County District Court, the same three judges that first questioned the state crime labs’ ability to report accurate test results are prepared to reconsider allowing breathalyzer test results into evidence. Promises from King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg that problems with the lab have been resolved have prompted this willingness to hear arguments regarding the improvement at the laboratory.

Satterberg claims that the lab has been scrubbed from top to bottom. He expects to proved that the major overhaul has addressed every one of the concerns the judges expressed in 2008.

Prosecutor Wants Reinstatement of Breath Test Results.

With nearly 4,000 DUI cases to prosecute each year in King County, Satterberg has found that the inability to present breathalyzer test results in court has “hamstrung” prosecutors. As far as he is concerned he has not been allowed to get “the best evidence before the jury.”[1]

Have DUI Breath Test Problems Really Been Addressed?

The question we keep asking this: What check and balances are in place to prevent the same problems that resulted in banning DUI breathalyzer tests from occurring again?

Machine-calibration errors occurred. Checks on the machines were performed by individuals who didn’t have the authority to sign off on the checks.

The State Laboratory claims to have implemented a Quality Assurance Program to address inaccuracies and ethical concerns. What the lab cannot address is the fact that these machines are not 100 percent accurate. It is vital that juries understand that breath-test results do have a certain measure of uncertainty.

Easier Convictions Could Lead to Many More Unfair Convictions.

We aren’t surprised that King County’s prosecutor’s office is seeking reinstatement of breath-test results as admissible evidence in DUI cases. It would make the job of securing a DUI conviction easier. But would it make these DUI convictions fair? We remain skeptical. We believe that blood alcohol test results are the most dependable. And until the breath test lab meets all of the most current standards, we’re going to keep on seeking to keep them out of evidence and challenging them if they come into evidence.

Whether or not there is a video will depend mostly upon who arrests you. As a defense firm, we like video.  It prevents the police from exaggerating in their reports and holds them accountable if they do.  Unfortunately, not all police officers have video in their cars. Frankly, most do not. We have found that if you have been arrested in the City of Seattle, then there generally will be a video of the stop, detention and arrest. However, most other cities do not have it, nor do most  State Patrol Troopers.

Video Keeps Officers Accountable for DUI Procedures.

When video recordings are seen in the courtroom, they provide an objective recording of the DUI stop and arrest. Not only would a video reveal whether the officer informed the driver that field sobriety tests are voluntary, if the video failed to provide objective evidence that the DUI detention was appropriate, the case would be dismissed. As stated above, videos also hold the police accountable for their observations. It prevents them from exaggerating how someone did on their field sobriety tests.  For instance, officers will often say that a person had many clues of impairment, but it is not uncommon for those clues NOT to show up on the video. This helps protect people’s rights.

Breath Testing Rooms Often Have Video Cameras

In addition to videos in the car, many breath testing rooms have videos of the breath testing procedure.  We have found that these videos can be particularly helpful in making sure that the police officers follow the rules and procedures for conducting the breath test properly.  We have had many breath tests thrown out of court because we have been able to prove, through the use of video, that the tests were not properly conducted.  Many of the police departments only keep these videos for a short period of time before recording over them, so it is important to ask for them within a few days of your arrest.  At our office this is something that we always do for our clients.

You Have a Right to See a DUI Video if One is Made.

If the police made a video, then you have the right to view it.  At the Law Offices of Geoffrey Burg, we always make sure we find out if a video exists and secure a copy for our clients. You deserve the best representation possible, if you are arrested for a Washington State DUI.