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Ramsey Steps Up Defense of DUI Law

For the second time in a week, D.C. Council members asked Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey to explain the arrests of drivers with blood alcohol levels below the legal limit for intoxication. On Monday, Ramsey acknowledged being confused about why the council plans to change the city's drunken driving law. Yesterday, Ramsey issued a full-throated defense of existing laws and his officers' actions in a few high-profile cases. We're at a point where traffic fatalities are the lowest in 20 years,'' Ramsey said. "I don't want us to slip.'' Ramsey said the public misunderstands the department's criteria for charging people with driving under

Deterring DUI Arrests A Concern For Ramsey

Eric M. Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer The Washington Post 10-25-2005 Deterring DUI Arrests A Concern For Ramsey; Chief Worries Officers Will Be Overly Cautious Byline: Eric M. Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer Edition: FINAL Section: Metro District Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said yesterday he is worried that recent controversy over the city's drunken driving law might cause police to avoid arresting dangerously impaired drivers. Ramsey said his officers, fearing "public ridicule," might think twice about arresting an unsafe driver whose blood alcohol level is below .08, the legal standard for intoxication. But if they don't make such arrests,

We’re at a point where traffic fatalities are the lowest in 20 years,’’ Ramsey said. "I don’t want us to slip.’’ Ramsey said the public misunderstands the department’s criteria for charging people with driving under the influence, or DUI. District law, like laws in Virginia and Maryland, allow for the arrest of any driver a police officer judges to be impaired, regardless of blood alcohol level. Attorney General Robert J. Spagnoletti, who joined Ramsey in testifying before the council’s Judiciary Committee, said: "There is no evidence to suggest that this is a big problem in the District of Columbia. The system works. The number of deaths declining suggest we’re doing it right.” Last week the council passed emergency legislation that would bring D.C. law closer to laws in surrounding states. But Spagnoletti said the changes affect only the presumptions that are used in court. They do not change the threshold for arrest: an officer’s probable cause to suspect that a driver is impaired by alcohol or drugs. Spagnoletti said many DUI arrests in which drivers have a blood alcohol level below .08, the legal level for intoxication in the District, also involve drug use, which cannot be measured with a breath test. In 2004, D.C. police made 521 arrests for driving while intoxicated, or DWI, and 165 for DUI. Police also arrested 103 people who refused to be tested. Those totals do not include arrests made by the U.S. Capitol Police and others. The Washington Post has published stories about the arrests of drivers with low blood alcohol levels. One report was about the experience of Debra Bolton, a 45-year-old Virginia woman, who said she was arrested for DUI and spent five months fighting the charge after drinking one glass of wine with dinner. Her blood alcohol level was .03, and her case was not prosecuted. Spagnoletti and Ramsey took issue with her story, saying she did not pass any of the four field sobriety tests administered by the arresting officer. In an interview, Bolton said that after the officer told her she was under arrest, she replied: "Why? I passed all your little tests.”

It was a creative legal argument -- perhaps brilliant, some said -- and after a brief reflection, a Fairfax County judge bought it, declaring that key components of the state's drunken driving laws are unconstitutional. In a decision that could prompt similar challenges nationwide, Judge Ian M. O'Flaherty cited a decades-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling when in the past month he dismissed charges against three alleged drunk drivers. O'Flaherty, one of 10 judges who preside over traffic cases in Fairfax County District Court, ruled that Virginia's law is unconstitutional because it presumes an individual with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 or

Defense lawyers challenge DUI breath test machine

Timothy Muldowny's lawyers decided on an unconventional approach to fight his drunken driving case: They sought computer programming information for the Intoxilyzer alcohol breath analysis machine to see whether his test was accurate. Their strategy paid off. The company that makes the Intoxilyzer refused to reveal the computer source code for its machine because it was a trade secret. A county judge tossed out Muldowny's alcohol breath test — a crucial piece of evidence in a DUI case — and the ruling was upheld by an appeals court in 2004. Since then, DUI suspects in Florida, New York, Nebraska and

Urinals Deliver A Dui Warning

RIO RANCHO, N.M. -- New Mexico is hoping to keep drunks off the road by lecturing them at the last place they usually stop before getting behind the wheel: the urinal. The state recently paid $21 each for 500 talking urinal-deodorizer cakes and has put them in men's rooms in bars and restaurants across the state. When a man steps up, the motion-sensitive plastic device says, in a woman's voice that is flirty, then stern: "Hey, big guy. Having a few Source : nl.newsbank.com