Tarrant County’s Disappointing Decision to Publish DWI Arrestees over New Years Weekend

January 1, 2012

By Collin County Criminal Defense Lawyer Jeremy Rosenthal

(972) 562-7549

texasdefensefirm.com

Tarrant County decided to publish the list of DWI arrestees.  You can read about their decision here.

According to Richard Alpert, Tarrant County prosecutorial guru for intoxication offenses, the measure is a creative way to make the streets safer.  Alpert reasons, “If the financial cost of being charged with a DWI-related crime and the risk of injury or death is not enough, perhaps the effect of having it known by friends and neighbors will be.”

In an interview with the Dallas Observer, Mr. Alpert further said he’s motivated to create new efforts to reduce drunk driving because of cases he’s worked on where people have been killed: “The worst photographs that I’ve ever had to look at as a prosecutor are vehicular crashes.”

Point well taken.  Mr. Alpert is highly regarded around the State and he is nothing if not sincere about his beliefs.

Here’s why Mr. Alpert’s decision is disappointing and reveals a common thinking error amongst law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies.  Not everyone’s guilty.  In fact, based on past statistics it is inconceivable that all of the arrested people this weekend will be convicted.

Tarrant County’s actions of publishing the names probably means an acquitted person’s name will be on the internet FOREVER as a drunk driver regardless of what a jury says — and even regardless of if and when a District Judge Orders the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office to take certain names off the list.  Putting something on the internet is writing it in permanent ink.

I wouldn’t expect the public to be too lose sleep over a few unlucky schmos who get tossed on this list because they ran into an angry cop having a bad night… or for some poor mope with a lisp that couldn’t talk an officer out of arresting him for having slurred speech… and I can’t imagine the masterminds of the list would be too bothered either.  After all… even if they beat the rap, they were probably guilty of SOMEthing, right?

Prosecutors have a duty to seek justice.  That duty is worthless where prosecutors assume everyone is guilty… and how do we know they’re making this assumption?  They are intentionally convicting them in the public and they’re not even bothering to read the police reports first.

Scary.

*Jeremy Rosenthal is Board Certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and licensed by the Supreme Court of Texas. Nothing in this article is intended to be legal advice.  For legal advice about any situation, you should contact an attorney directly.  Contacting the attorney through this blog does not create an attorney-client relationship.  Communications through this blog are not confidential.

 

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Deep Lung Devices are Getting Harder to Avoid in Collin County While on Bond

December 14, 2011

By Dallas and Collin County Criminal Defense Lawyer Jeremy Rosenthal

(972) 562-7549

texasdefensefirm.com

All driving while intoxicated arrests in Texas require that a person see a magistrate judge.  That judge is required by law to make an initial assessment and to decide whether to order the defendant to have an ignition interlock device (also known as a deep lung device) under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure 17.441.

Here is the relevant text of 17.441:

“(a) Except as provided by Subsection (b), a magistrate shall require on release that a defendant charged with a subsequent offense under Sections 49.04-49.06, Penal Code, or an offense under Section 49.07 or 49.08 of that code:

“(1) have installed on the motor vehicle owned by the defendant or on the vehicle most regularly driven by the defendant, a device that uses a deep-lung breath analysis mechanism to make impractical the operation of a motor vehicle if ethyl alcohol is detected in the breath of the operator; and

“(2) not operate any motor vehicle unless the vehicle is equipped with that device.

“(b) The magistrate may not require the installation of the device if the magistrate finds that to require the device would not be in the best interest of justice.

Section 17.441 can be read to state that a judge can only order the interlock device on a vehicle if it’s the 2nd DWI arrest (or more) of the defendant.  The judge can find that an interlock ignition device is not appropriate in the best interests of justice even on a 2nd arrest.

In reality, Judge’s interpret the law to state that they can always place an interlock device on a car but are only required to do so on a 2nd offense.  It is unclear whether they are interpreting 17.441 as the basis for their beliefs of some other statute.  Additionally, many Collin County judges have informal policies that if a defendant had a car accident or was charged with the new offense of DWI with a blood alcohol concentration above 0.15, then they will order the deep lung device as well.

Ultimately deep lung devices are becoming more and more common as terms and conditions of bond in Collin County.  Arrest and going before the magistrate is not the only time in a case where a judge may have an opportunity to order the deep lung device as well… the judge can order the defendant get one when the defendant applies for an occupational license due to a driver’s license suspension, during a guilty plea, or if a jury convicts the defendant.

*Jeremy Rosenthal is Board Certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and licensed by the Supreme Court of Texas. Nothing in this article is intended to be legal advice.  For legal advice about any situation, you should contact an attorney directly.  Contacting the attorney through this blog does not create an attorney client relationship and communications through this blog are not confidential.

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Defending Blood Draws Versus Defending the Breath Test

November 16, 2011

By Dallas and Collin County Criminal Defense Lawyer Jeremy Rosenthal

(972) 369-0577

texasdefensefirm.com

There are many strategies to specifically attack either a breath or blood result, but today I’m going to compare blood and breath samples very generally.

Generally speaking — the most vulnerable aspects of either test is due to the degree that a human can either intentionally or negligently effect the outcome.

Jurors tend to have a bit of a natural skepticism against the science and technique regarding the breath test, but jurors unfortunately don’t scrutinize blood tests quite the same way.  On the other hand, the process for administering the breath test is ‘idiot proof’ whereas the procedure for taking, shipping and testing the blood is filled with human contact.

The Breath Test

The breath test is based on extracting the alveolar breath from one’s deep lungs.  That breath sample has to (1) come from the deep lung in the first place;  then (2) travel through the lungs, esophagus, and mouth, through a tube on the intoxylizer machine, and into a test chamber roughly the 1/3 the size of a coke can.  Pollutants which contain hydroxyl molecules at any place can corrupt the sample.  But, compared to the blood test, the breath test is scored right on the spot.  The operator of the breath test machine needs very little training and experience to administer the test — and they should not be able to affect the test.  If the operator makes a mistake, chances are that the machine will invalidate the result or that it will be revealed on the video of the test being taken.

Blood Draws

Challenging the chain of custody and the testing of blood can be very frustrating.  This is because the person drawing the blood, the people processing and sorting the blood samples at the lab, and the lab technicians simply don’t remember YOUR specific blood test.  Places where blood is drawn and the labs that test them are mills where they process 20, 30 or 100 different blood samples any given day.  But don’t worry — they’ll be sure to testify at trial that they never make mistakes when they draw the blood, put it on the carousel to be tested, or process it in the mail room.  The manufacturer of the blood vials puts in powdery chemicals into the vial to preserve the blood specimen.  Again, challenging the amount or quality of the chemicals can be like howling at the moon in front of a jury.

A recent opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court, Bullcoming v. New Mexico, at the very least allows defendants the opportunity to cross examine the personnel that test the blood.  In addition, it contains a far more in depth discussion of blood draws and is worth the read if you are interested.  Prior to Bullcoming, prosecutor’s were able to simply proffer a sheet of paper with the blood result which is impossible to cross-examine and a spokesperson to talk about the underlying science.  Jokingly, it is not much different that calling the receptionist at the lab who just tells the jury that in her experience “everyone is guilty.”

A Must if You’re Challenging Either Breath or Blood

Challenging the blood or the breath test, though, can only be done when the jury is told over and over that it is impossible to show where some scientific test went wrong — only that the result can’t possibly be right.  Jurors tend to have the expectation that someone can go back into a lab or into a breath test machine, recreate the exact circumstances, and prove exactly where a test went wrong.  But a good DWI trial lawyer needs to debunk that expectation and demonstrate to the jury that you can tell, for example, that a clock is wrong not by examining it by the finest timekeeper in switzerland — but because the clock says it’s night time and the sun is out.

*Jeremy Rosenthal is Board Certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and licensed by the Supreme Court of Texas. Nothing in this article is intended to be legal advice. For legal advice on any topic, you should consult an attorney directly.  Contacting the attorney through this blog does not create an attorney-client privilege and communications in response to this article are not subject to the attorney-client privilege.

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Posted by Jeremy Rosenthal, Esq.

Texas DWI Punishment Gets Tougher for First Time Offenders. Again.

September 11, 2011

By Dallas and Collin County Criminal Defense Lawyer Jeremy Rosenthal

texasdefensefirm.com

(972) 562-7549

A person with a blood alcohol concentration with a 0.15 or higher at the time the test is taken can now be charged with a Class A misdemeanor DWI instead of a Class B if it is their first offense.  This change took effect as of September 1, 2011.

First, let’s discuss the practical effects of the change.  A Class A misdemeanor on a DWI is punishable between 30 days and 1 year of county jail and a fine not to exceed $4,000.  A Class B DWI is punishable by between 72 hours jail and 180 days and a fine not to exceed $2,000.   Unlike a 2nd DWI, however, this law does not require the defendant serve 10 days as a term and condition of probation — meaning that a person doesn’t have to go to jail for 10 days just to be granted probation.

Second, you can see that I’ve italicized the words above “at the time the test is taken.”  This is a significant departure from normal drunk driving law which prohibits one’s blood/ alcohol concentration being above a 0.08 at the time of driving.  This is a “tie goes to the prosecutor” provision because it is very difficult for prosecutors to prove whether a person’s blood alcohol concentration was higher or lower at the time of driving due to a process known as retrograde extrapolation.  So this twist is really just punishing people who have blood alcohol concentrations that are on the rise when they are driving.

Texas’ prosecutorial mentality of “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail” with this new change gives a person even more incentive to refuse a breath test and to take a DWI to trial.

*Jeremy Rosenthal is Board Certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and licensed by the Supreme Court of Texas. Nothing in this article is intended to be legal advice.  For legal advice about any situation, you should contact a lawyer directly.  Contacting the attorney through this blog does not create an attorney-client relationship and no communication is considered privileged.

 

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Not Much New DWI Legislation in Texas for 2011

June 4, 2011

By Dallas and Collin County Criminal Defense Lawyer Jeremy Rosenthal

(972) 562-7549

texasdefensefirm.com

After a political season with a lot of chest-beating and drum-banging about changes to existing Driving While Intoxicated laws in Texas, only several changes will be made to the Texas Penal Code.  You can read an article by the Dallas Morning News on the topic here.

There are only two changes. The first is that that punishment ranges can be increased for first-time DWI cases with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.15 or greater from 180 days to 1 year of jail for punishment. This change may sound like a harsh one, but the vast majority of DWI first-time offenders get probation regardless of the jail sentence — which means the punishment is suspended whether it’s 72 hours or 1 year of jail. The second change is to increase the punishment level where a victim of intoxicated assault is in a vegetative state from 10 years to 20 years.

The big news is that the legislature did not pass a bill allowing deferred adjudication in Driving While Intoxicated for first time offenders. The bill had broad support from law enforcement as well as prosecutors because the harsh state of DWI penalties gives prosecutors no room to plea-bargain. Defense lawyers had a luke-warm reaction to the idea because the proposed legislation was extremely shallow in it’s benefits for those pleading guilty to a first-time drunk driving charge.

*Jeremy Rosenthal is Board Certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and licensed by the Supreme Court of Texas. Nothing in this article is intended to be legal advice.  For legal advice about any specific situation, you should consult an attorney directly.

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