Thursday, July 29, 2010

From the category archives:

Field Sobriety Testing

Upcoming DUI Seminars

January 24, 2010

The following is a list of upcoming DUI and drunk driving related seminars: 11th Annual Michigan Association of Drug Court Professionals (MADCP).  February 2, 3 2010. This seminar is in cooperation with the Michigan Judicial Institute (MJI).  This two-day conference is specifically designed to meet the educational needs of circuit, district, family, and probate court [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

NHTSA Field Sobriety Tests Fatally Flawed

October 2, 2009

If you have been arrested for drunk driving in Michigan then you probably submitted to one or more field sobriety tests.  The problem with these tests is that they are not reliable indicators of intoxication and they are almost never administered properly by the police.  Because arrests for DUI in Michigan are almost always based [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

Standardized Field Sobriety Testing in DUI Litigation

September 1, 2009

What follows is an excerpt from an article that appeared in the Michgan Bar Journal.  Click HERE to read the entire article. With the advent of the Breathalyzer and its offspring, the DataMaster, field sobriety tests (“FSTs”) had taken a back seat in drunk driving prosecutions.  However, now that the new drunk driving laws no [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

Common Defenses in DUI Cases

June 25, 2009

The first thing we do when we look at a case is to determine if there are any “legal” defenses.  This inquiry asks the question “did the police violate the law?”  The next thing we do when we look at a case is determine if there are any “factual” defenses.  Factual defenses are basically trial [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

What Should You Do If You Are Pulled Over For Drunk Driving?

June 25, 2009

It appears that the most popular video on YouTube on the topic of drunk driving is my video entitled “What Should You Do If Pulled Over For Drunk Driving.”  In this video I am specifically referring to the Michigan drunk driving laws and the Michigan Implied Consent Law. In this video I explain why you should [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

Internet Causes Not Guilty Verdict in Drunk Driving Trial

April 29, 2009

Technology is causing a big problem with the way juries deliberate.  Now that the internet has become ubiquitous, jurors have access to the web both while the case is being tried, and also, during deliberations.  Because of this, jurors sometimes use the internet to do research about the issues being tried. This is problematic because [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

Majority of Michigan’s OWI Arrests Based on Faulty Evidence

April 23, 2009

This provocative headline is based on the following article published in the February 2009 DWI Journal: Law & Science. Standardized Field Sobriety Testing: Learning from Our Mistakes Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there was a significant difference between the NHTSA/IACP standardized administrative procedures learned by officers in the basic SFST practitioner [...]

  • Share/Bookmark