Fighting a Minor In Possession Charge

Prom and graduation season is fast approaching, and these events typically involve alcohol consumption. Way back in the dark ages when I graduated high school, the drinking age was 18, "legally drunk" was 0.15% (it's now 0.02% for those under 21 and 0.08% for those over 21), and getting caught drinking meant the police stood next to you while you told your parents what you'd been doing. Times have certainly changed, and there are now serious consequences to underage drinking. As long as no driving is involved, a teen caught drinking faces a Minor in Possession of Alcohol charge (MIP). If driving is involved, that under-21 year old likely faces a DUI, too. While the best practice for minors is to avoid people and places where alcohol is served to anyone, life happens.

Our local courts see many MIP cases, and many are tough on MIPs, requiring those facing a first MIP charge to admit guilt and impose conditions such as probation, alcohol awareness classes, community service volunteer hours, and fines. The costs add up quickly. As a DUI defense lawyer, I'd rather help my clients avoid pleading guilty in the first place. Why? You want to avoid having any conviction on your record, ever.

Don't go to court and plead guilty thinking you'll just get the MIP charge "removed" from your record at a later date. Future employers doing background checks, as well as law enforcement and military recruiters, will see this "indiscretion."

When a teen is charged with MIP, it costs time and money to deal with the situation and minimize the impact of the arrest. I've helped many minors over the years and, having raised two, I know that kids make mistakes. My methods for teaching important life lessons are amply effective and much less damaging than letting the courts "help" someone ruin their future with a guilty plea.

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Fighting drunk driving charges

People who have been charged with drunk driving in the state of New Jersey have several options available for their defense. Although they will of course be considered innocent until they are proven guilty, an assertive attempt to defend themselves against the charges may result in a much more positive outcome.

The two main types of criminal defense are the affirmative and the negative. The affirmative defense does not challenge the information provided by the prosecution. Instead, it adds to it with further evidence that is intended to exonerate the accused of wrongdoing. Affirmative defenses such as duress, where the defendant asserts that there was no choice but to drive intoxicated in order to get away from a dangerous situation, or involuntary intoxication, where the defendant states that they had become chemically impaired without their volition and may not have been aware of their intoxicated state, are rare but can be asserted if the appropriate circumstances exist.

It is more common for a defendant against charges of DUI to adopt a negative defense. This means that the evidence presented is challenged by finding fault in the information itself or the way that it was gathered. For example, if it can be shown to the court that the police did not act legally in making a traffic stop that led to a DUI charge, then the charge may be dismissed.

Penalties such as license suspension or revocation may commonly accompany convictions for DUI. The New Jersey court system may impose conditions such as the required installation of an ignition locking device on the defendant's primary vehicle. There is also the possibility of jail time and hefty fines. A criminal defense attorney can be helpful to clients who wish to attempt to refute the charges or mitigate the penalties.

Source: FindLaw, "Defenses to Drunk Driving", accessed on Feb. 11, 2015

Tags: convictions, fines, license suspension, penalties

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Who is fighting against ignition interlocks? (Hint: It’s not DUI lawyers!)

A night on the town could be a thing of the past

As a DUI Lawyer in Orange County, I try to keep ahead of developments in breath and blood testing.  But technology from the automotive world might be a game changer as far as how DUI s might be handled, or prevented, in the future.

Several automotive manufacturers have been meeting with, partnering with, and developing experimental technology to detect alcohol, including alcohol emitted from the skin in sweat through the steering wheel, or from the breath.

In 2008, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched a 5-year campaign to develop ignition interlocks as standard equipment in all vehicles. NHTSA and the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety—which is funded by auto manufacturers—have budgeted $10 million to solicit research and development on the widespread use of this in-vehicle technology.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has asked Congress for another $60 million to be allotted annually for alcohol detector development.  So there is big money behind this.

The group opposing this?  It’s the American Beverage Institute, which fears this would prevent people from going out for even one drink.  Of course, as my fellow Orange County DUI Lawyers know, a machine is only as accurate as the maintenance, calibration and margin of error for the device allows it to be, assuming no deviations from standards.  Garbage in, garbage out, as they say, and in this case, a false positive or machine malfunction could have serious consequences to the driver.  The Beverage Institute’s newsroom is here at:  http://abionline.org/newsroom.cfm?t=inthenews

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Alcohol, American Beverage Institute, Driving under the influence, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, orange county, Orange County California, orange county dui arrests, Orange County DUI Attorney, orange county dui attorneys, orange county dui checkpoint locations, orange county dui checkpoints, orange county dui lawyer, orange county dui lawyers

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2012 at 11:46 am and is filed under Dui Checkpoints, DUI News, DUI politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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