Seattle DUI Lawyer Aaron Wolff To Chair Criminal Law Seminar
Aaron Wolff, an attorney who focuses his practice on Seattle DUI defense will co-chair this year's Washington State Bar Association Criminal Justice Institute, a two day seminar in Seattle which updates practicing lawyers on the latest in criminal law and procedure.
The seminar will be held at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in downtown Seattle on September 10 and 11, 2009.
Speakers will include Retired Judge Robert McBeth doing his annual update on Washington State search and seizure law, and the Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna.
The seminar will also cover courtroom techniques for trial lawyers, including cross examination.
Michigan DUI Statistics
According to MADD, 30 percent of all Americans will be involved in an alcohol related crash at some point in their lives. Sobering statistic.
If you think about it, it probably is about right. How many people do you know who have either been in a DUI related accident, or are close with somebody who has. I can't think of a single person I know that is more than 4 degrees separated from a serious DUI accident or fatality.
Consider the bolded quote in the excerpt below:
Commentary: No defense if others die | detnews.com | The Detroit News: "Statistics from Mothers Against Drunk Driving say about 3 in 10 Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives.
Last year, those odds resulted in the death of 317 people in the state. They died horrible and gruesome deaths with no good-byes to those left behind.
If the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results, our failure to combat drunken driving is beyond insane.
Police say less than an hour before the crash, the same pickup bounced off the guard rails at a McDonald's drive-through on Van Dyke in Warren; the driver was allegedly so smashed he was no more capable of operating a vehicle than a kid ramming bumper cars at an amusement park.
'He was that drunk,' a State Police officer said. 'He just didn't realize what he was doing.'"
By that definition of insanity, one could coherently argue that the DUI laws on the books in every state are insane. The lawmakers keep the same laws or make them though each year. Prosecutors keep on doing their thing. Cops do theirs. DUI defense lawyers do theirs. And yet the problem and the statistics don't shift much.
Perhaps these statistics dictate that it is time for a fresh look at how we deal with the problem of DUI in our justice system?
California juries can consider accuracy of breath tests in DUI cases
This is a long post and the article below from the LA Times is quoted in full. At issue is one of the most important issues surrounding DUI cases. That is the accuracy of breath testing. This ruling, from the California Supreme Court, is on the right track and acknowledges the "science" behind breath testing and comes to terms with the simple fact that the machine will produce disparate results for different people depending on many factors not accounted for in testing.
California's highest court says juries can consider accuracy of breath tests in DUI cases - Los Angeles Times: “SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The California Supreme Court has joined a handful of other courts in the country that have said Breathalyzer results mean different things for different people and ruled that suspected drunken drivers can attack the test results in court.Defense attorneys lauded Thursday's unanimous ruling for deferring to science, which has shown for years that the test results are highly variable. Prosecutors, however, predicted the move will undermine California drunken driving cases.
At issue is how authorities use booze breath to determine how much alcohol is in the bloodstream.
When consumed, alcohol is absorbed in the blood and carried through the brain to the liver and heart before diffusing in the lungs, where it is exhaled in breath.
Authorities now use a nationally accepted scientific formula known as "Henry's law" to convert the amount of alcohol vapor in the lungs to a blood-alcohol level.
The scientific problem is that breath-to-blood ratios vary greatly throughout the population and fluctuate individually, influenced by such factors as body temperature, atmospheric pressure, medical conditions and the precision of the measuring device.
That means the same breath-test result for one person's breath could signal intoxication while for another it could simply mean "just a glass of wine with dinner, officer."
Compounding the matter are California's two distinct driving under the influence laws.
The first law, which has been on the books for decades, requires proof that a driver was intoxicated such as slurred speech, bloodshot eyes and the like. Jurors are told they can presume someone is drunk if blood tests show at least a .08 percent level of alcohol.
The second law, passed by the Legislature in 1981 and updated in 1989, simply defined a drunken driver as someone with a blood-alcohol level of .08 percent regardless of appearance or behavior. The state Supreme Court in 1994 extended that definition to include Breathalyzer results, barring drivers charged with the second law from attacking the variability of the breath tests.
Since then, most DUI attorneys viewed disputing Henry's law as a dead end for challenging breath-test machines.
Prosecutors routinely charge their clients with both versions of the law to increase the chances of conviction.
Defense attorneys and prosecutors agreed the state Supreme Court ruling on Thursday reopened the door to breath-test challenges. The court said evidence of the variability of tests can be shown to juries.
"Defense evidence is relevant to rebut the presumption that the defendant was intoxicated, but not to remove the presumption altogether," Justice Carol Corrigan wrote for the Supreme Court.
Courts in Arizona and Vermont have made similar rulings, she said.
Prosecutors said the California ruling will seriously hamper their ability to win convictions in driving under the influence cases.
"It will confuse jurors," said Margaret O'Malley, a Santa Barbara County prosecutor who represented the California District Attorneys Association before the high court.
Defense attorneys said the ruling confirms in court what science already knew: one-size-fits-all breath tests don't necessarily reflect reality for all suspects.
"I've had clients with one lung," said Steven Oberman, a Tennessee lawyer and founder of the National College for DUI Defense, explaining such people will naturally have more alcohol vapors in their breath than someone with two lungs.
To make its ruling, the California Supreme Court used the case of Timmie Lance McNeal, who was convicted in San Bernardino County of drunken driving. He appealed in 2007, arguing that he was improperly barred from challenging the breath test.
The Supreme Court agreed that McNeal was wronged by the trial court but chalked it up to "harmless error." The Supreme Court said there was abundant evidence other than the breath test to support the jury's determination that McNeal was guilty of drunken driving.”
Congratulations to the California Supreme Court for getting this so right!
