Mississippi Criminal and Family Law Blog

Judge Christine Ward of Pennsylvania was cited for DUI over the weekend after admitting to state troopers that she had too much to drink. The Judge, who works on civil litigation cases, has been accused of being intoxicated while driving.

According to WPXI of Pittsburg, Judge Ward “staggered as she walked…and at one point Ward fell to her side.”

During the incident, Judge Ward was observed by the police to have “exhibited difficulty standing on her own as she leaned on her vehicle.” Once Judge Ward had been arrested and “taken to the hospital for blood work,” police reported “she refused to submit to the blood test three times.”

An Arkansas man who was convicted of two counts of  DUI causing serious injury from an incident occurring in 2013.

“Samuel Elijah Yearber, 34, of Pontiac, Ark.,  . . . [was sentenced] . . . to a total of 15 years, with five suspended, leaving 10 years to serve, followed by 5 years of probation. Yearber was also ordered to pay more than $1.3 million in restitution for the victims’ medical expenses. He faced up to 25 years on each count. At the sentencing hearing, the defense requested leniency, saying he had no criminal history and pointing to his 16 years of military service. After the 2013 crash, he was dishonorably discharged from the Air Force by way of court-martial.”

Mr. Yearber’s blood-alcohol level was 0.13 and as a result of the accident, the Defendant’s passenger now suffers from a permanent brain injury and the prosecution argued the passenger.

Most great players become famous through training techniques and coaching assistance for decades. Training camps, specialized drills, all lead to sport related combines which test strength, speed, coordination, and other measurements to enable the “Friday Night Hero’s” to play on Saturday, and then on Sunday. I have heard that to progress from JV teams to the Professional ranks the ratio is one in sixteen thousand. To be that ‘one’ requires a combination of health, diet, and a workout second to none. The ‘one’ will spend hours on ‘machines’ designed to maximize physical prowess, strength, speed and over all athletic dominance to start in a position as no other before.

The “one” must come to trust his program to take him from here to the Hall of Fame. That trust starts in the machines to tune the body to physical perfection, to ward off injury, to rehab all sort skeletal issues that are bound to come over a long period of play, and ingrained into every athletic program and player.

Dak Prescott was out late at night / or early morning, and in a 2016 “get-you-stopped –every-time Cadillac Escalade.” Mississippi State University is in a college town, which like all college towns, has a love hate relationship with incoming college students. How many years have I heard Law Enforcement say, “We just have to get them (the students) under control” which results in massive arrests and jammed court dockets from September through November of every school year.

“Drunk driving” is a loosely used phrase throughout the country.  Mothers Against Drunk Driving.  Students Against Drunk Driving.  Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving.  [Insert the name of a celebrity or athlete] Busted for Drunk Driving!  The organizations, slogans, and headlines aside, is “drunk driving” really what our law says is a crime?

            No.

            Actually, our law – specifically Mississippi law – criminalizes “driving the under the influence,” most commonly referred to as “DUI.”  One can drive under the influence without actually being intoxicated, or “drunk.”  In fact, as a law firm that has successfully defended thousands of DUI cases in Mississippi, we have found that the majority of the people accused of this crime were not physiologically intoxicated.  Rather, in the opinion of an officer, or a machine (a breath, blood, or urine testing machine), the person was “under the influence.”  Most often, that is under the influence of alcohol, but we have experienced a rapid increase in the volume of “drugged driving” cases, or, driving under the influence of “other substances” or “controlled substances,” in the last decade or so.

A police officer with the Virginia Beach Police will not face state charges for her arrest for an alleged DUI. The Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office has referred the case to federal court as the incident occurred on federal property with Navy officials making the stop and conducting the investigation.

“After our review, we have determined that U.S. District Court in Norfolk is the appropriate venue for this case.  The incident occurred on federal property, and Navy officials made the stop and conducted the investigation.  The Virginia Beach Police Department was not involved or notified until several hours later,” according to Commonwealth’s Attorney spokeswoman Macie Allen.

It is alleged that Hobbs had an alcohol concentration nearly three times the legal limit and had kids in the vehicle when she attempted to enter the Naval Air Station Oceana Dam Neck Annex in February.

In this line of business, we attorneys come across new and improved quackery that is supposed to help drinkers keep track of their blood alcohol content and whether they should be out on the road behind the wheel.
However, last week, I encountered the Breathometer. What a name! (See www.breathometer.com for information.) This new piece of tech supposedly can give a user their current BAC levels, how many hours it will be until they are sober, and it is super portable.
Partiers should probably not treat this product as a new security blanket, because it is, by its very nature, not as accurate as the machine down at the police station (and defense attorneys already know how inaccurate these can be). Moreover, drunk-o-meters have been in bars for years as a bar gag game and have not stopped impaired drivers from getting behind the wheel.
As long as people are drinking, there will be a new piece of tech to get people drunker faster, sober up quicker, and/or monitor their BAC all along the way. The police are counting on these three facts as it only leads to increased drinking and increased DUI citation writing.
The only way to combat drunk driving is to know one’s own limits. While a drinking driver may not have the same equipment that the police use to sniff out BAC, these drivers can ascertain their own level of intoxication relative to levels they have felt prior. The problem with this line of thinking is that drinkers typically cannot identify the difference between feeling .08 and feeling .12 by way of an example. Is this where the Breathometer makes out its own niche? Or is it more likely that the Breathometer will lead to more drivers who are mistakenly over the limit to get behind the wheel?

Eighteen-time Olympic gold-medalist Michael Phelps was arrested for DWI in Maryland last week. As a man with multi-million dollar endorsement gigs, he’s probably not too worried about the fines. But as our office has learned over the years, a DUI arrest and/or conviction can have many other repercussions. For Phelps, USA Swimming has suspended him and prohibited him from competing in the world championship next year. To read more about it, please read our post here. And if you’ve been charged with DUI or a related crime, please give us a call to discuss your case.