Drunk drivers throughout Harris County, Montgomery County and surrounding areas face many serious criminal penalties when they are convicted of driving under the influence. A criminal record can limit future job opportunities. The temporary suspension of a license can make it difficult to fulfill personal, professional and family obligations. The record of the DWI  can raise insurance costs for years to come, and the fines and costs from the trial and penalties can be financially devastating.

These consequences are very harsh for someone who may have just had a momentary lapse in judgment or made a simple mistake and who was convicted for impaired driving as a result. Yet, even with DWIs carrying such stringent penalties, a DWI defense lawyer knows that lawmakers regularly take steps to come down even harder on drunk drivers. In part, this is because of intense pressure from public advocacy groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Whatever the motivation, lawmakers in one state are considering imposing draconian restrictions unlike any that currently exist.

Could States Prevent Drunk Drivers From Buying Alcohol?

According to Fox News, a senator in Oklahoma has introduced a bill that would give judges the authority to impose and enforce alcohol restrictions on people as a consequence of impaired driving charges. Senate Bill 30 requests that procedures be developed to require drunk driving offenders to refrain from buying or even consuming alcohol for a period of time that is up to the discretion of the judge.

There are currently no laws anywhere the country imposing a blanket prohibition on any group’s right to consume alcohol after reaching the legal drinking age of 21. There are significant questions about whether this proposed law would even be constitutional. There are also practical enforcement questions. For example, would restaurants be allowed to serve food that had alcohol in it to someone who had been convicted of drunk driving, or would a DUI offender still be able to take communion or participate in religious ceremonies that involve alcohol?

The bill does not spell out answers to these questions. The proposed law sets forth the general guidelines for how the prohibition would work. DWI offenders would be required to order and use a replacement identification that had the words “Alcohol Restricted”  printed on its front. As a result, when people have to show ID to buy alcohol, the clerk would be alerted that the buyer was not allowed to make the purchase.  The law also specifies that if someone was caught buying alcohol for anyone that he or she knew was alcohol restricted, that person could face felony charges. Penalties could include up to a year of jail time and up to $1,000 in fines.

If Oklahoma does pass this law, it will apply only in-state and won’t directly affect Texans. However, other states could adopt similar laws if Oklahoma leads the way. This would significantly curtail the rights of people who have faced drunk driving charges.

Call Joseph LaBella & Associates today at 800-395-5951 or visit www.texas-dwi-lawyers.com to speak with a Houston DWI defense lawyer. Serving Harris County, Montgomery County, and communities along Interstate 45 through The Woodlands and Conroe. 

In Harris County, Montgomery County, Houston and the entire state of Texas, drivers give implied consent when they get behind the wheel. Essentially, this means they have given their permission for law enforcement to test their blood-alcohol concentration. Police cannot just test your BAC whenever they want to, though. They will need to have probable cause or a reasonable suspicion that you have consumed too much alcohol to be safely behind the wheel.

There have been many legal disputes and court cases attempting to clarify the extent of the power of law enforcement when it comes to stopping potentially drunk drivers and testing the level of alcohol in their bodies. The disputes typically center around whether the accused’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure were violated. The defendant will petition to the court, arguing that evidence was collected illegally. If the court agrees, then the judge will order the evidence suppressed. The evidence, as well as any other information that police obtained as a direct result of the illegal search, will not be admissible by the prosecutor. Since the illegal evidence cannot be used against you, the prosecutor may have to drop the charges if there’s no other proof of your intoxication.

One recent dispute has navigated its way through the legal system and the Denver Post reports that the case may be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. This means that the decisions of the Supreme Court will apply to every defendant in a criminal case for drunk driving throughout the United States.

How Far Can Police Go Without a Warrant? 

The case, People v. Schaufele, which the Supreme Court may announce a decision to hear as early as January, originates from an accident that began at around 7:15 in the morning at a busy intersection. An allegedly disoriented driver was found at the scene after hitting an oncoming car. The driver was transported to the hospital.

No one reported smelling alcohol on the man, and law enforcement attributed the driver’s initial confusion to post traumatic stress from the accident. However, the fourth law enforcement officer to come into contact with him smelled alcohol on him. An officer at the hospital also indicated that he detected the scent of alcohol. That officer tried to inform the driver that a blood test would be taken to determine intoxication. The driver, however, was unconscious or asleep and did not give consent.

There was no warrant obtained before the test was administered. The results revealed that the driver had a blood-alcohol concentration around three times over the .08 legal limit. As a result, the driver was charged with four counts, including drunk driving.

He pled not guilty and sought to have the evidence suppressed because the blood test allegedly violated his rights. The Supreme Court in Colorado, where the arrest occurred, agreed that the blood draw should not be used. The case has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which would make the decision about whether this type of evidence is admissible. Future drunk driving defendants will be affected by this ruling, as it could impact evidence collection procedures and the kinds of evidence that can be used in court.

Call Joseph LaBella & Associates today at 800-395-5951 or visit http://www.texas-dwi-lawyers.com/ to speak with a Houston DUI defense lawyer. Serving Harris County, Montgomery County, and communities along Interstate 45 through The Woodlands and Conroe. 

When you are charged with driving while impaired (DWI) in Texas, you generally face misdemeanor charges. A misdemeanor is a crime for which the penalty is a year of jail time or less. In most cases, a first time drunk driving offender will be able to avoid jail entirely or will spend only a short time in jail.

Unfortunately in some cases, an incident of drunk driving can lead to a felony charge. A felony is a crime for which you face more than a year of prison time, as well as other potential consequences such as the loss of voting rights. 

A felony is much more serious than a conviction for a misdemeanor. It will follow you the rest of your life. While it is always important to get legal help from a DWI defense lawyer in a situation where you have been charged with impaired driving, it is especially essential in cases where you are facing felony charges. Your attorney can help you to determine the extent of the potential penalties, as well as assist you in understanding what you need to do to try to plea bargain down the charges or avoid conviction.

When Does a DWI in Texas Become a Felony? 

A DWI criminal charge is upgraded from misdemeanor to felony when there are aggravated circumstances. There are many different situations where you may be charged with felony drunk driving under Title 10 Chapter 49 of the Texas Penal Code. For example, you may be charged with felony drunk driving if:

• You have a minor in your vehicle who is under the age of 15.
• Your drunk driving results in an accident in which someone suffers serious bodily injury. This is called intoxication assault, and it can result in third-degree felony charges. Serious bodily injury is defined as a situation where there was a substantial risk that the victim would die or experience permanent disfigurement. A minor accident that results in a few mild injuries typically will not result in you being charged with a third-degree felony for intoxication assault.
• Your drunk driving causes a fatal accident. If someone dies in a motor vehicle accident you cause while impaired by alcohol or drugs, you face second-degree felony charges for intoxication manslaughter.
• You cause harm to a police or law enforcement officer, emergency medical personnel or a firefighter. If you harm any of these safety professionals while you are drunk and they are working in the line of duty, you could be charged with a second-degree felony, whereas if you caused a similar type of harm to someone else who was not a peace officer or within these special categories, you would face only third-degree felony charges. In the event you cause a death to one of these public servants, then you could be charged with a first-degree felony.
• You have prior drunk driving convictions. If you have two prior convictions for misdemeanor drunk driving, your third conviction would be a felony conviction.

If aggravating factors exist in your drunk driving case, be sure to call an attorney as soon as possible.

Call Joseph LaBella & Associates today at 800-395-5951 or visit http://www.texas-dwi-lawyers.com to speak with a Houston DWI defense lawyer. Serving Harris County, Montgomery County, and communities along Interstate 45 through The Woodlands and Conroe. 

In the state of Texas, drivers who have two or more drunk driving convictions over a period of five years are required to install an ignition interlock device in their vehicles. Drivers who are arrested for a first offense must also have an ignition interlock device installed on cars that they own. Motorists must pay for the cost of the ignition interlock device. The device typically must remain on a vehicle for at least one year following the period when a license is suspended.

An ignition interlock device can be costly to install and operate, and it can be burdensome and embarrassing as all drivers who use the vehicle must blow into the device in order for the car to start. Unfortunately, the only way to avoid having an ignition interlock device installed is to avoid a conviction for an offense that would trigger the IID requirement. A DUI defense lawyer can assist you in defending yourself or exploring plea bargain or diversion options to avoid a conviction that could trigger the required use of an ignition interlock device.

Do Ignition Interlock Devices Work to Prevent Impaired Driving?

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) revealed that there were around 305,000 ignition interlock devices installed in the United States as of 2013. The use of ignition interlock devices has increased at a rate of 30,000 units every single year over the past eight years.

An ignition interlock device works by making it impossible to start a vehicle until you blow into a device installed on the dashboard that tests your blood-alcohol concentration. If your BAC exceeds .02, the vehicle will not start. There are also rolling retests that are required to ensure that the driver who initially blew into the test is the one operating the vehicle and is staying sober during operation. A rolling retest gives the driver a limited period of time to have his BAC tested again after he is driving. A failure to take the test, or a BAC above the limit, results in an alarm going off and the driver must stop operating the vehicle.

Because ignition interlock devices essentially make it impossible to drive drunk, there is a decrease in re-arrests among people who have been required to have these devices put into their vehicles. However, research has shown that the devices only have an impact for as long as they are actually installed in the car. After an ignition interlock device is removed from a person’s vehicle, the rate of re-arrest for a subsequent drunk driving offense returns to normal.

This suggests that these devices do little to actually solve problems that may cause people to drive while impaired. They are expensive, and have no long-term benefits so regulators may be better off finding alternative ways to stop drunk driving. Offenders may also benefit from being able to negotiate plea bargains or enter into diversion programs that provide drug and alcohol counseling rather than being convicted and simply having to pay huge sums of money to have an ignition interlock device put into their car.

Call Joseph LaBella & Associates today at 800-395-5951 or visit http://www.texas-dwi-lawyers.com to speak with a Houston DUI defense lawyer. Serving Harris County, Montgomery County, and communities along Interstate 45 through The Woodlands and Conroe. 

If you are charged with driving impaired and your blood-alcohol concentration is over-the-limit in Texas, it may seem difficult to mount a defense. After all, the science says that you are too impaired to be safely on the roads.

As a DUI defense lawyer knows, however, blood and breath tests are not  accurate and plenty of mistakes can be made. You need to have a full understanding of your rights and explore ways to introduce doubt about the accuracy of tests if you have been charged with impaired driving. Recently, mistakes made in one PA county show just how easy it is for errors to lead to the conviction of innocent people for impaired driving.

DUIs Can Be Calculated Incorrectly
According to the Sun Gazette, a Pennsylvania county has made serious mistakes when determining whether motorists were impaired.

A local hospital was responsible for testing drivers to see if they were over the legal limit of .08. Unfortunately, the hospital incorrectly tested motorist blood serum, nor the motorists’ whole blood. The result was that blood-alcohol content of motorists was overestimated by as much as 15 percent.

Testing blood serum can be an acceptable way to determine if someone is drunk. However, a calculation must be done in order to convert the percentage of alcohol found in the blood serum to determine the percentage of alcohol that would be found if a whole blood sample. This calculation was not performed.

Because of the error, people may have been found over-the-limit when really they had not consumed enough alcohol to be considered intoxicated. Furthermore, because a higher blood-alcohol concentration can lead to more serious penalties, drivers may have been left to cope with longer jail terms, larger fines and a longer license suspension as a result of inaccurate test results.

Yahoo News indicates that the District Attorney in the county where the mistake was made has described the incident as an “unfortunate oversight.” Unfortunately, it was much more than just an “unfortunate oversight” to the people whose lives were disrupted by jail terms or the loss of a driver’s license due to inaccurate testing.

The District Attorneys office says that it has reviewed more than 570 cases and eliminated them as being affected by the discrepancy. Another 180 cases could be affected and will be reviewed shortly. When the review is complete, estimates indicate that around two percent of cases may either need to be retried or dismissed.

The hospital and police disclaim responsibility for the error, indicating that it is the job of the prosecution to make sure the blood-alcohol concentration levels are correct. Since it is so clear that prosecutors failed to do their jobs in this instance, the mistakes serve as an important reminder to defendants and defense lawyers to always check the evidence for inaccuracies.

Call Joseph LaBella & Associates today at 800-395-5951 or visit http://www.texas-dwi-lawyers.com/ to speak with a Houston DUI defense lawyer.

Football is a much beloved sport in Texas, but many people drink and drive during football season and police know it. Studies have shown that the number of arrests for alcohol offenses increases during football season. It is routine for Texas law enforcement officers to be aware of big game days, especially Super Bowl Sunday, and to increase enforcement in order to catch people who may be driving while intoxicated.

An arrest for drunk driving during football season can significantly impact your future. It is important to consult with a DUI defense lawyer if you are charged with violating drunk driving laws so you can have the best opportunity to negotiate a plea deal or defend yourself against the charges.

Drunk Driving Arrests Increase During Football Season

The U.S. National Library of Medicine from the National Institutes of Health published a study on the impact football season has on arrests for alcohol-related crimes. To conduct the study, researchers looked at a period of 30 days, including 10 game days, 10 “control” days and holidays. The researchers studied arrest records on those days in areas where there were Division 1 football teams that were performing well.

Over the study period, there were a total of 944 arrests for alcohol-related crimes, including driving while impaired by alcohol. A significantly number of these arrests occurred on game days. In fact, on Sundays when football games were played, there were 70.3 arrests on average for alcohol-related criminal offenses. On non-game Sundays, which served as the control days, there were an average of 12.3 alcohol-related arrests. On holidays, which also tend to be times when there is a high amount of alcohol-use, there were 11.8 arrests.

Based on this data, researchers were able to conclude that football season made a difference in the number of people arrested. Further evidence of this was found in the fact that arrests that occurred on football days tended to occur closer to the football stadium in general when compared with the arrests that occurred on holidays or on the control group non-football Sundays.

This football season, it is important to remember that the police will be out looking for people who are driving drunk, and that law enforcement officers are especially vigilant for signs of intoxication at the times when football games end and people drive home. Whether you are attending professional or college games or simply going to a friend’s house to watch the game, you should ensure you have a designated driver in place to take you home before you begin to consume alcoholic beverages.

If you are pulled over and accused of intoxicated driving during football season, you need to know your rights. Police must have reasonable justification for stopping your vehicle and for requesting you to submit to a test of your blood-alcohol concentration. An experienced attorney can help defend your rights as we fight to keep a criminal conviction off your record.

Call Joseph LaBella & Associates today at 800-395-5951 to speak with a Houston DUI defense lawyer.

In a drunk driving trial or other criminal case, expert witnesses may testify for the prosecution or for the defense. For example, you may present expert witnesses who will testify about problems with the sobriety tests, while prosecutors may present expert testimony about levels of impairment or accident reconstruction.

Unfortunately, as a recent article from the National College of DUI Defense (NCDD) made clear, these “expert” witnesses may not actually be experts after all. Furthermore, there may be situations where experts cannot be sued by people whose lives they ruin even if they provide false or inaccurate testimony.

When you are charged with a crime, your fate may hinge on these experts. You need a criminal defense lawyer to help you put together a strong case and to raise any necessary questions about the qualifications of prosecutor’s witnesses.

Problems with Rules for Expert Witnesses

The NCDD reported multiple situations where expert witnesses may have provided incorrect or inaccurate information in trial. These included an expert witness from the O.J. Simpson trial; a state toxicologist who was convicted of perjury and who may have falsified lab reports leading to as many as 134 wrongful convictions; and a toxicologist who ran more than 34,000 labs in Massachusetts and who pleaded guilty to crimes related to falsifying reports.

These stories were described as being only the “recent ones,” and “only the tip of the iceberg.” Unfortunately, when a toxicologist is caught falsifying lab reports or lying to obtain a conviction, nothing bad generally happens to the person. In fact, just recently, a Court of Appeals in Ohio ruled that a state toxicologist could not be sued or found liable for false testimony in a murder case even though the judge relied on his testimony for the conviction and even though he had been convicted of perjury.

The Court of Appeals opinion states that the witness “deserves absolute immunity in the case because all testimony, even if perjured, is protected to ensure witnesses will be candid without fearing lawsuit.” The absolute immunity, even for dishonest testimony, applies to government witnesses.

The NCDD believes that problems with expert witnesses start well before a potential perjury conviction. Often, no one cares enough to check whether the witness has the qualifications that are claimed. For example, the witness who was recently given immunity for his false testimony had claimed to be a doctor but he really did not even have a master’s degree and it is unclear whether he even had an undergraduate degree. University records showing how he may have been able to obtain the degree are missing.

Problems like this undermine faith in the criminal justice system, as they should, and thus are whitewashed. Prosecutors care about their conviction record and may not have a lot of incentive to look too deeply into the expert witnesses on their side.

All of this points to serious problems in the criminal justice system that make it hard for defendants to get the fair trial they deserve.

Call Joseph LaBella & Associates today at 800-395-5951 or visit http://www.texas-dwi-lawyers.com/ to speak with a Houston DUI defense lawyer.

More than 1.2 million people were arrested for driving under the influence in 2011, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The rate of drunk driving is the highest among 21 to 25 year olds, but young teenagers are also commonly cited for driving while impaired by alcohol or drugs.

When a teenager is arrested for drunk driving when he is still in high school, it can significantly interfere with his chances for a college education. A vigorous drunk driving defense is necessary to hopefully avoid conviction and a criminal record in order to maintain the best chance at getting into a college. Joseph Labella & Associates should be consulted after a teen is arrested for drunk driving or student accident for help achieving the best outcome after an arrest.

Many Colleges Consider Criminal Records in the Admissions Process

Avoiding conviction and a criminal record for drunk driving is essential for high school students because the majority colleges consider criminal records when determining whether to admit a student.

The Center for Community Alternatives believes the use of criminal records is troubling, especially as administrators are often not trained in how to effectively consider an arrest history. Further, many young people who have a history of arrest are not given an opportunity to explain themselves to the college admissions committee. One youthful mistake could shape the course of a young teens life if the college fails to give him a fair chance.

Unfortunately, this occurs far too often. A total of 273 institutions that are part of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers were surveyed by the Center for Community Alternatives. The administrators were asked 59 questions about the impact of criminal records on the college admissions process.

In total, 66 percent of the academic institutions indicated that they collected criminal justice data on potential candidates. Most of the schools that collect data on candidates’ criminal histories use the information on arrests and convictions when determining whether to admit a student to the school. Just 38 percent of responding institutions said that a criminal history did not play a role in their decision-making process when considering a candidate. The schools that did not consider a student’s criminal history were not any less safe in terms of crime statistics than schools that did take criminal records into account.

Unfortunately, many of the schools do not have written policies in place regarding how they will actually use the information obtained from criminal records. In addition, only 40 percent of the schools trained staff members about how to interpret information on arrest records or reports. Because of this, students could be disqualified from opportunities even for minor offenses.

A drunk driving arrest should not disrupt your child’s whole life. An experienced defense lawyer should be consulted as soon as possible to help respond to the charges and hopefully avoid a conviction and get an arrest record cleared.

Call Joseph Labella & Associates today at 800-395-5951 or visit http://www.texas-dwi-lawyers.com to speak with a Houston DUI defense lawyer.

A Texas resident was recently pulled over for a traffic violation, with some reports indicating he ran a red light and other reports indicating he had run a stop sign. When the driver was pulled over, field sobriety tests were administered to determine if he was impaired. The Austin Police Department indicates that the Texas man “swayed,” and “needed his arms for balance,” which were signs of potential impairment caused by either alcohol or drugs.

Despite the man’s insistence that he had only had one drink, he was arrested for driving while impaired. He agreed to give a blood sample and submitted to a breath test. The Breathalyzer showed that he had a blood-alcohol content (BAC) of 0.00. The blood test would also later come back 100 percent negative, indicating he was sober. Despite the breath test results and the fact that he said he wasn’t drunk, Yahoo News reports that the Texas man spent the night in jail because of his alleged drunk driving crime.

The case is a terrible example of what can happen when police and prosecutors are overzealous in trying to identify intoxicated drivers. It is also an illustration of the importance of having a Houston DUI defense lawyer representing you.

Take-No Chances Policy Can Have Unfortunate Consequences

The Austin Police Department defended the arrest of the sober man for drunk driving, indicating that the department has a “take no chances” policy. This policy ends up having very undesirable consequences for motorists in Texas. Travis County has reportedly “dismissed a higher percentage of drunken driving cases than other major Texas counties – in part because prosecutors said police filed weak charges or prosecutors allowed suspects to plead to other crimes.”

Zero tolerance and the “take no chances” rule are a response to the political pressures to ensure that as few drunk people as possible are on the road and Travis County is far from the only place where overzealous legal action occurs.

USA Today reports that April is Alcohol Awareness Month, and there are frequently both state and national campaigns where police are encouraged to step up enforcement and crack down on impaired motorists. The result is that police may sometimes feel a lot of pressure to make arrests and innocent people are caught in this effort. The Texas man who was unjustly arrested, for example, will now spend the next few months fighting to get his record cleared.

Those who are arrested have to deal with the consequences. Innocent people could end up pleading guilty to drunk driving charges even if there is not sufficient evidence to convict them.   If you don’t have a lawyer to advise you on whether the charges against you are likely to hold up in court or you don’t have a lawyer to defend you from weak charges, you could actually face a drunk driving conviction even if you were not impaired.

It is up to you to protect your rights.  You need an attorney who can help you.

Contact Joseph LaBella & Associates today at 800-395-5951 to speak with a criminal defense lawyer in Houston. 

In January 2012, police arrested a man for aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs. The defendant was convicted and sentenced to seven years of incarceration. This conviction has now been overturned. The reason a judge overturned it: the man did not actually have any scheduled drugs in his possession.

The case is an important one because it shows that prosecutors sometimes stretch to make a case even when the drug law does not clearly make a certain behavior criminal. Because the consequences of a conviction for drug crimes are so severe, it is essential that defendants are represented by an experienced criminal defense attorney in Houston to protect against prosecutorial overreach and unjust convictions.

Drug Crime Case With No Drugs

The incident began when a neighbor made a call to police about suspicious activity upstairs. Police arrived at the scene to find a man with glass containers omitting fumes. Evacuation of the home was ordered and an investigation began.

The investigation revealed an illegal cookbook called “Uncle Fester’s Synthetic Manual,” which contains recipes for creating narcotic substances such as methamphetamine. Also found were the majority of ingredients necessary to produce meth.

Based on the fact that the evidence showed the defendant was in the process of creating methamphetamine, prosecutors charged the defendant with drug trafficking. This was instead of a more suitable criminal charge: attempted trafficking in scheduled drugs. The man may have been trying to make meth but he had not succeeded and thus had no controlled substance in his possession

Although the defendant’s argument was not initially successful, a judge overturned the man’s conviction because the judge believed a person could not prepare, process or traffic a scheduled drug unless that narcotic was ultimately present. Since no methamphetamine was actually produced, there could be no trafficking.

With the defendant’s conviction set aside, he was released from incarceration and is currently free to move on with life. However, prosecutors may now pursue a claim for “attempted trafficking in scheduled drugs.” This is a less serious crime but could still result in incarceration. There is no guarantee the prosecutor would win even on charges of attempted trafficking, since the man had some but not all of the ingredients that are necessary to produce meth. Without all of the ingredients, it could be argued that there was no serious attempt to produce the drug.

Drugs produced at home tend to complicate enforcement of drug laws since it may not be clear exactly what point basic ingredients actually cross the line and becomes illegal.  The new development of the drug culture has led to many grey areas. In addition to the issue of meth, for example, the federal government has also been having difficulty creating an effective bans on drugs like synthetic marijuana and bath salts where just one ingredient can be changed to make the product legal again without affecting the mind-altering impact of the substance.

Contact Joseph LaBella & Associates today at 800-395-5951 to speak with a criminal defense lawyer in Houston.