Temporary Legislative Sanity in the State of Washington

DUIBlog reports on a couple of recent bills in the Washington state congress that died a quick and appropriate death. Let's hope it becomes a national trend.

First is a bill to restore DUI roadblocks after the state Supreme Court outlawed them as contrary to the state constitution. The US Supreme Court had given a pass on "minor" violations of your constitutional protections.

As many of you know, the United States Supreme Court in Michigan v. Sitz found that although sobriety checkpoints were apparent violations of the Fourth Amendment, they were only ”minor” violations. Permitting police to stop citizens without reason to believe they had done anything wrong, Chief Justice Rehnquist said, was permissible in view of the government’s ongoing “War on Drunk Driving”.

It's minor becuase members of the US Supreme Court have drivers.

Gov. Christine Gregoire suffered her first major defeat of the 2008 Legislature on Thursday when her push for drunken-driving checkpoints died without enough support from lawmakers

Good for them.

The second was an insane proposal to require those who've been convicted of DUI to use fluorescent-yellow license plates. That's the year after they've served any jail time and after their license suspension is over. That's after all the criminal penalties are finished they'd be required to wear a Star of David fluorescent-yellow license plates.

For some reason the Washington lege decided that was just a really bad idea.

California DUI blog

What rights? We don't need no stinking rights.

If you're charged with DWI you're going to need a lawyer. It might not do you much good, but you're still going to need one. Because DWI is a serious charge?

But is it. The law really is nonsense, it has nothing to do with rational thought. You see, the constitution promises you a jury trial. But the Supreme Court decided that they only need to stand up that promise if the charge is "serious". What does that mean? Well, whatever it means they've decided that DWI isn't really serious.

I mean it's a serious crime that the legislature has to take seriously and judges and prosecutors and cops have to take seriously. But it's not serious enough to require the government to actually follow the law themselves.

Isn't legal analysis great?

Look nice for the camera

A Texas defense attorney suggests that looking good on a police video can pay off at trial.

A breath test case with a good video is a battle worth fighting. There the State's evidence is internally inconsistent with itself.

Georgia DUI Blog

DUI blogs

I can't find a DUI blog that covers Oklahoma DUI as a specialty. Looks like an available niche market waiting to be filled.

Standardizing DWI laws

State laws are becoming more and more standard across the board. The US uses things like threats to withdraw highway funds to force states to pass laws that the feds want passed. That's who we got the idiotic .08 intoxication levels in every state.

Findlaw has a side-by-side comparison of some of the details of state DWI laws.

DWI/DUI

By far the biggest area of criminal law practice in is DWI/DUI defense.

Washington University school of law has a web page devoted to resources about DWI/DUI law.