Recently, the Arizona Supreme Court held that police can only get a blood sample from a DUI / Drunk Driving suspect as long as the suspect consents or the police obtain a warrant. In the case decided by the Arizona Supreme Court, the driver only spoke Spanish and he was not spoken to in Spanish. He neither consented to nor resisted the blood draw after his DUI / Drunk Driving arrest. The blood draw was done by the Arizona police officer while the driver was sitting on the steps of the police van after vomiting. Recently, I blogged that Arizona is a state that allows police officers to draw blood from DUI / Drunk Driving suspects.

It has been reported the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office failed to disclose to the defense the criminal histories of 80 police officers who may have testified in criminal cases including DUI / Drunk Driving cases. Apparently, any prior convictions of testifying police officers were not brought to the attention of the District Attorney’s Office. As a result, apparently police officers with criminal histories may have been allowed to testify without being asked by defense attorneys about their criminal histories which may have included DUI / Drunk Driving cases. Unfortunately for the District Attorney’s Office, they have a legal obligation to find out if any of their witness have criminal histories even in DUI / Drunk Driving cases.

Ireland is considering lowering the legal limit to .05% (California is set at .08% for DUI / Drunk Driving) alcohol in drivers blood who drink and drive. In addition, the law would lower the legal limit to .02% for drivers who are learning to drive, underage, and professional drivers. However, many of the studies used to support this proposed law have come into question as the studies can not be substantiated. However, the law, if passed, could not be implemented until at least 2011 because the DUI / Drunk Driving breath testing machines used in Ireland are either outdated or not properly calibrated for the new proposed level. It would take a male weighing 150 lbs. to have 2 1/2 drinks in his system to be a .05. A women weighing 120 lbs. can be a .05 with just one drink.

The California Highway Patrol arrested 1,252 drivers for DUI / Drunk Driving throughout the state of California between the hours of 6 p.m., December 31, 2009 and 6 a.m. January 3, 2010. This is compared to 986 drivers arrested during the same time period last year. This amounts to an increase in arrests of almost 27% over last year. In Los Angeles County alone, the CHP arrested 241 drivers for DUI / Drunk Driving during the same period of time. During last year’s New Year’s Holiday period, the CHP arrested 202 drivers for DUI / Drunk Driving. This year’s number of arrests by the CHP in Los Angeles county resulted in an increase of over 19% compared to last year. I’m quite sure most, if not all, police agencies will have a dramatic increase in the number of DUI / Drunk Driving arrests this year compared to last year.

According to the Orange County Register, the California Highway Patrol arrested 527 people for DUI / Drunk Driving between 6 p.m. December 31, 2009 and 6 a.m. January 1, 2010. This is an increase of over 20% compared to last year when the California Highway Patrol arrested 438 people for DUI / Drunk Driving during the same period of time. In Los Angeles County, the California Highway Patrol arrested 108 people for DUI / Drunk Driving this year compared to 88 people arrested last year. This represents an increase of almost 23% of DUI / Drunk Driving arrests by the California Highway Patrol compared to the same period of time last year. As I said previously, look for a substantial increase in DUI / Drunk Driving arrests this New Year’s Holiday weekend by local police agencies throughout Los Angeles County.

According to the LA Times, 1,424 people were arrested for DUI / Drunk Driving in Los Angeles County between December 18 and December 26, 2009. The number of DUI / Drunk Driving arrests during the same period in 2008 was 1,416. Of the total number of arrests in Los Angeles County, the California Highway Patrol arrested 236 people for DUI / Drunk Driving. I’m pretty confident that since the number of DUI / Drunk Driving arrests were almost the same from 2008 to 2009, there will be a much greater increase in the number of arrests during the New Year’s Holiday weekend. Almost all police agencies are showing a dramatic increase from last year and I’m sure police agencies in Los Angeles County will not want to lag behind the rest of the state.

As reported previously in this blog, some states are training police officers in drawing blood in DUI / Drunk Driving cases in order to help streamline DUI / Drunk Driving prosecutions. A recent ruling by an Arizona Appellate Court in Tuscon upheld police officers practice of drawing blood from suspects at the scene of DUI / Drunk Driving arrests. The court turned away the constitutional challenges that were raised in appeals where the blood draws were done by the police. The court held that the police officers were trained phlebotomists and the procedures they used were reasonable. Arizona has become a leading state in the training, use and practice of police officers drawing blood in DUI / Drunk Driving cases. As reported previously, Arizona is training law enforcement agencies in other states on police officers drawing blood at the scene of arrests.

According to the Denver Legal News Examiner and many other news media outlets, the Colorado Springs Police Department crime lab discovered that 82 blood samples taken since January, 2009, were found to have lower blood alcohol concentration levels than initial test samples showed. Now, over 1,000 blood samples are being retested for accuracy. Prosecutors are already contacting defense attorneys for past clients may have been effected by the new discoveries. The Colorado Revenue Department has already restored at least 3 driving privileges who have been convicted of DUI / Drunk Driving based on faulty results. Among the Colorado government authorities who are investigating what went wrong are the Bureau of Investigations and the Police Internal Affiairs departments.

Police in East Lampeter Township, Pennsylvania, arrested a 22 year old man this past weekend for DUI / Drunk Driving after he was found asleep in his moving buggy. The horse drawn buggy was moving slowly, at a walking pace, as it was straddling the center line. The sleeping driver/rider was given a breath test with the results being 0.18%, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08% in Pennsylvania. I can see the defense now-the horse was driving the buggy! The alleged sleeping driver was just along for the ride. I wonder if the horse was tested for alcohol and/or drugs. Apparently, the horse was driving the buggy and sleeping passenger straight down the road.

The New York State Assembly passed a bill yesterday that would make it a felony DWI to drive while intoxicated with a child in the vehicle. The bill would also require first time convicted offenders to install an ignition interlock device (IID) in their vehicles. This bill is quickly moving through the New York legislature as it could be passed by the New York Senate and sent to the governor for signature this week. Many sources are saying that if this bill goes into law, New York will have the toughtest DUI / Drunk Driving laws in the nation. To date, ignition interlock devices are now used in some form in 47 states.

According to the New York Times, in 2008, 37,695 people were convicted of drunk driving in New York.