DUI Super Drunk Law Enforcement

On October 31, 2010 a new drunk driving law in Michigan goes into effect, and it carries some stiff penalties. Known as the “Super Drunk” bill, this legislation amends several sections of Michigan law, and most notably adds a new crime for drivers with a bodily alcohol content (BAC) of .17 or greater.  Under this new statutory definition of operating while intoxicated these high BAC drivers are required to have a breath alcohol ignition interlock device (BAIID) placed on their vehicle.

Other more punitive sanctions include:

• A first offense high BAC drunk driver’s license is suspended for one year.
• The first 45 days of this year is considered a “hard” suspension, meaning absolutely no driving is allowed.
• 320 days of restricted driving privileges, but only with an ignition interlock device placed on their car.
• Fines are increased to $200.00 – $700.00, and
• potential jail time is increased from up to a possible 93 days to as much as 180 days.

There are several other changes as well.  For example,

• The court must also order a mandatory minimum one-year alcohol treatment program.
• The new law also makes drunk driving far more expensive because it is the driver’s responsibility to pay the cost of installing the BAIID as well as the monthly fees required to maintain it.
• The new law also provides for a sanction of impoundment where a person required to have a BAIID is stopped in a non-BAIID vehicle.

At the Barone Defense Firm we intend to fight this new law and to help our clients avoid any of these penalties.

Get a FREE confidential CASE EVALUATION on your Michigan OWI/OWVI/DUI by calling (616) 365-5780 , or filling out this consultation request form. Call now, there’s no obligation!

Ignition Interlock Device in Car

MADD is at it again, this time the goal is to put an ignition interlock device into every drunk driver’s car. A bill has been introduced to make such a law mandatory in every state.

They intend to do it the old fashioned way – by withholding federal highway money. This is the same insidious method that was used to make 0.08 blood-alcohol content the law in every state. MADD intends to use this method to compel states to require alcohol ignition interlocks for all convicted drunk driving offenders.

The threat of losing federal highway funds has proven to be a powerful inducement to pass increasingly draconian drunk driving laws. Recently, two U.S. senators, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Tom Udall of New Mexico, joined MADD representatives Monday to announce their bill will use this tactic for ignition interlocks.

Accordingly to OHSonline:

Lautenberg wrote the law that lowered the legal blood-alcohol limit to 0.08 from 0.10 in all 50 states and also the law that set 21 as the legal minimum drinking age. He said U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., has included language to accomplish the bill’s goal in the transportation reauthorization bill. Lautenberg and Udall serve on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

In passing the super drunk law, Michigan recently joined ten other states that currently have laws that require an ignition interlocks for all drunk driving offenders. The other states include Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Utah, and Washington. Michigan’s law will go into effect on October 31, 2010.

For more information on ignition interlocks see:

• Drunk Driving Traffic Stops and Interlocks
• Will Ignition Interlocks End Drunk Driving?
• Ignition Interlocks – BAIID

To help make up for lost revenue, more Michigan counties are seeing forfeiture of the cars driven by people arrested for DUI.  Will yours be next?

If the Oakland County Prosecutor has her way, then the answer may well be “yes.” Jessica Cooper has instructed her prosecutors to seek forfeiture for repeat drunk driving offenses. 

Here is what the Royal Oak Daily Tribune had to say about it:

Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper has launched a new vehicle forfeiture program for cases of repeat drunken driving.

Under the program, a person accused of a second offense of drunken driving could have to pay $900 to get their seized vehicle back and avoid forfeiture. For people who have offended three times, the cost is $1,800.

Prosecutors say the program is an effective tool in the fight against drunken driving. Similar programs are in use in Wayne and Macomb counties.

Some people have lingering questions and concerns, including about whether the initiative is overly punitive and will really work to curb drunken driving.

I guess you could say I’m “some people” because I think trying to take people’s cars for drunk driving is egregious.  It’s legalized theft really.  I intend to fight these attempts for all of my clients.

The trouble is, forfeiture is increasing as money grubbing law enforcement officials use this legalized theft as a way to make up for declining properly values.  Here is what the Detroit news recently reported on the matter:

Local law enforcement agencies are raising millions of dollars by seizing private property suspected in crimes, but often without charges being filed — and sometimes even when authorities admit no offense was committed.

The money raised by confiscating goods in Metro Detroit soared more than 50 percent to at least $20.62 million from 2003 to 2007, according to a Detroit News analysis of records from 58 law enforcement agencies. In some communities, amounts raised went from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands — and, in one case, into the millions.

“It’s like legalized stealing,” said Jacque Sutton, a 21-year-old college student from Mount Clemens whose 1989 Mustang was seized by Detroit police raiding a party. Charges against him and more than 100 others were dropped, but he still paid more than $1,000 to get the car back.

Here is a bit of history on the matter, also from the Detroit News article:

The friction over seizures is a result of two competing legacies in U.S. law. While the Fourth Amendment, adopted in 1791, protects the right of citizens to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, the Supreme Court ruled in 1827 that a Spanish-owned ship could be seized after it fired on a U.S. vessel. Whether or not the crew was convicted, the brig was the principal offender, it ruled.

And 169 years later, the nation’s high court reaffirmed the notion when it ruled that a Royal Oak woman couldn’t challenge the seizure of the family sedan after her husband was caught having sex with a prostitute inside, even though she didn’t know the car was being used for that purpose.

Here is an instructive video on the matter of civil forfeiture:

If you believe that the police may try to forfeit your car for drunk driving, then call me today!  Time is of the essence, and if you don’t act quickly then one of your most valuable assets could be lost forever.