Attempt DUI

Attempt Driving Under the Influence, or DUI, are you kidding me? If you're in California, watch out! California laws give officers copious amounts of latitude when dealing with drunk drivers. According to Mother's Against Drunk Driving (MADD), in 2006, an estimated 17,602 people died in alcohol-related traffic crashes, and three in every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash in their lives. This doesn't mention the thousands of people who have had their lives dramatically changed due to a drunk driver. I always got a great amount of personal satisfaction arresting a drunk driver, mainly due to the unknown... Who would they have killed or severely injured if I had not arrested them before they had a chance.

So you mean that you can be arrested without even driving in California? Yep, you sure can, and here's how. Let's say that you are stumbling drunk, juries like stumbling when you talk DUI. You come out of your house or out of the nice drinking establishment. An officer slows to see you stumbling, and having a tough time getting to the car, and even harder time getting the keys into the door, and then into the ignition. Well, mostly for safety reasons, California law enforcement officers don't have to wait for you to start the car and drive, they merely have to form the opinion that you were going to drive, and then you get to go to jail for the night.

But wait, there's more! Let's say that you were driving, drunk of course, and no officer observed you driving. You're safe? Right? Nope. Let's say that you were driving and got into an accident. You thought that you would be smart and tell the officers that it was your friend driving. However, there was a witness that saw you get out of the car and tells the officers what he saw. Then the officers looks at your arms and see airbag burns, or looks at your left shoulder and sees a bruise forming (from the driver's side seatbelt). They can also form the opinion that you were driving and arrest you for drunk driving. Doesn't sound fair? Well, too bad.

Also applied to the above scenario is when you fall asleep behind the wheel, due to intoxication of course. Maybe you have the foresight to place the car into park, or maybe not. But the officers approach your car and smell alcohol emitting from your body and car. They have a tough time getting you to wake up, and when you do, you are slurring your speech and your eyes are bloodshot and watery. All the officers have to prove is that you drove to that location, and more than likely, it was when you were drunk.

So here is another scenario. You get into an accident and flee the scene. Of course, you're drunk. That doesn't mean that you can't get charged with DUI. If the victim and witnesses can articulate your actions that lead them to believe that you were intoxicated, a good prosecutor will file charges and win the case in court.

I was working late one evening in a nicer part of town. There was one car in front of me stopped at the red light; nobody else on the road. The light turned green and the person in front of us didn't go. I waited patiently to see what he was going to do, all the while running his car for registration, and for any warrants. The car then started driving very slowly, and when his car came back with no warrants, I pulled him over. As he was pulling over, I could see that he was messing with something around his waist area. I quickly approached his car once he pulled over and looked in. The first thing that I noticed was that his pants were down, strike one. I then looked on the floorboard and observed a needle (with a dark residue inside, strike two. I then noticed that he was "out of it", strike three. It turns out that he was a veterinary assistant, a working professional, who happened to be addicted to black tar heroin. He would shoot up next to his pubic area so that no one would see the injection marks. He had six additional balloons of heroin and additional needles. We arrested him, of course, for possession of a controlled substance, paraphernalia, and DUI.

In California, after three DUI related convictions (within ten years), your fourth DUI arrest becomes a FELONY. Once you have one felony DUI related conviction, all subsequent DUI arrests are felonies. This increases jail time and penalties. In certain cases where a persons dies as a result of your DUI driving habits, you can be arrested for murder (2nd degree) and you are looking at 15 years to life. Normally, the vehicular manslaughter cases in our office average about 6 years, state prison time.

Also, there are new police units popping up across the country. These are highly trained motor cops that put aside writing tickets to go after habitual drunk drivers. They go undercover into court, your house, work, etc., and are outside in undercover cars. They wait for you to get into the car and they "got ya." Usually persons with DUI's have a suspended drivers license and are on probation. Any amount of alcohol in your system and you are arrested. If you are caught driving on a suspended license, you are arrested. All of these arrests are also going to carry the probation violation as well.

It is still considered cool to be a designated driver. It is also great to call a taxi or a friend who is not drunk. Being drunk cannot only take the livelihood of another; it can take away your livelihood as well.