A U.S. representative from central Texas recently claimed that half of the people arrested for driving while intoxicated on Interstate 35 are illegal immigrants. At a forum on the Mexican border crisis, the congressman said that local law enforcement had told him this, as well as that most illegal immigrants had no identification but police officers had to let them go with just a ticket because the jails are full. Fact-checkers debunked this claim on multiple levels:

• None of the law enforcement agencies they talked to had official statistics on the number of DWI arrests that involved illegal immigrants; and
• Jails have contingency plans in the event that they have reached capacity.

What is true is that immigrants, here legally or otherwise, can face serious consequences if they are convicted of DWI.

Will I Be Deported?

If you are an immigrant to the U.S. who has been charged with DWI, your biggest fear may be whether a conviction would result in deportation. The answer depends on your legal status in the U.S.:

Of the methods for testing someone’s blood alcohol concentration, blood tests are considered the most accurate. However, a breath test is more useful to police officers who are trying to establish probable cause to arrest someone for driving while intoxicated. It is more difficult to get a suspect to give a blood sample, and the results are not available until the blood has been taken to a lab for testing. By contrast, a breath test may be as simple as the subject breathing into a portable device, and officers can obtain immediate results in the field. Drivers who are stopped on suspicion of DWI should be cautious about agreeing to a breath test, even if they have had little or nothing to drink. There are several reasons that a breath test may give an inaccurate reading, leading to your arrest:

1. Equipment Errors: The breath test device, commonly called a breathalyzer, must be periodically calibrated to ensure that its readings are accurate. When a breathalyzer is used frequently, its sensors can become saturated, causing readings to be inaccurately high. Law enforcement cannot know whether the equipment has been affected in this way unless they check the device on a regular schedule.
2. Software Errors: While the hardware collects the breath sample, the software interprets the sample to determine a BAC level. Seemingly reliable software can have glitches or bugs that affect the readings. This is more likely to happen if the law enforcement organization is using an older and outdated software system.
3. Nonalcoholic Substances: A breathalyzer can mistake other substances for alcohol, causing an artificially high BAC reading. These substances may include mouthwashes, breath fresheners, and acetones that are present in the breath of diabetics. Your breath can also be contaminated if you have recently inhaled gasoline, glue, paint or thinner.
4. Residual Alcohol: The recent presence of alcohol in your mouth will create a reading that is higher than your actual BAC. Because of this, a police officer is required to wait and watch you for 15 minutes before giving a breath test to make sure you have not consumed any alcohol, burped or vomited. Failing to do so makes the results unreliable.

Contact a San Antonio DWI Defense Attorney

It is advised that you refuse a breath alcohol test during a DWI stop. If you did submit to the test, a San Antonio DWI defense attorney at the Law Offices of Sam H. Lock can review the test process and dispute the results during your case if there is a good reason to believe that they are inaccurate. Schedule a free consultation by calling 888-726-5625.

Source:

Ride-sharing services such as Lyft and Uber often hail themselves for decreasing the number of crashes and arrests involving people who drive while intoxicated. Arranging for transportation through your phone makes it easier for you to get a ride home when you are too drunk to drive. Various studies have shown that metropolitan areas had decreases in DWI arrests after the ride-sharing services entered their market, but the effect is inconsistent across the different cities. Some researchers believe that the effect of ride-sharing services on DWI arrests and crashes may be overstated.

Other Factors

Researchers had a good opportunity to study the relationship between DWI arrests and ride-sharing services when Lyft and Uber temporarily left some major cities a few years ago, including Austin and San Antonio. Cities such as San Antonio did have a noticeable decrease in alcohol-related crashes when the services returned, but other cities saw little or no change. For instance, the number of DWI arrests continued to decrease in Austin after Lyft and Uber ceased operating there. Thus, researchers state that other factors may be responsible when DWI arrests decrease, such as:

• Public education campaigns;
• Expansions in public transportation; and
• Societal attitudes towards drunk driving.

A Fatal Problem

Texas consistently has the highest number of alcohol-related driving fatalities in the country. The fatality total has slightly increased in Texas during recent years – from 1,323 in 2015 to 1,468 in 2017. Ride-sharing services certainly do not seem to be decreasing the number of deaths. The assumption that ride-sharing will greatly prevent drunk driving is flawed in several ways:

All arrests for driving while intoxicated must start with the police officer establishing reasonable suspicion to stop a vehicle. Accepted reasons to stop a driver include traffic violations or erratic driving behavior. However, officers will sometimes stop drivers on nothing more than a hunch that they are committing a DWI offense. Traffic stops based on hunches are illegal, even if the hunch ends up being correct. Any evidence that came after that illegal stop would be suppressed in court, effectively ending the prosecution’s case. There are several ways that an officer may use a hunch instead of reasonable suspicion to initiate a DWI stop:

1. Targeting Bar and Restaurant Patrons: Many drunk drivers became intoxicated because they were at a public establishment that serves alcohol. Police officers know that there is a greater risk of DWI incidents near bars and restaurants, but they cannot stop a driver simply because they were leaving such an establishment. The driver must show signs of impairment that create reasonable suspicion that they may be intoxicated. Stopping the driver prematurely would be targeting a driver based on a presumption of guilt.
2. Unidentified Container: Having an open container of alcohol in a vehicle is both against the law and evidence of a possible DWI incident. However, an officer may be unable to justify a stop based solely on what they guess could be an alcoholic beverage container in the vehicle. It is difficult to identify the label or contents of a container from a distance. Non-alcoholic beverages come in many of the same cans and bottles as alcohol. The officer would need to pair their observation of a possible alcohol container in the vehicle with other evidence that creates suspicion of intoxication.
3. Not Accounting for Adverse Driving Conditions: Intoxicated drivers can draw suspicion from police officers by driving too slowly or swerving. This behavior suggests possible impairment under normal circumstances, but adverse driving conditions can also be a reasonable explanation. For instance, there is a difference between driving slowly on a clear night and during heavy rainfall. With visibility decreased and the road slick, driving below the speed limit could be the responsible decision given the conditions. It should be a more likely explanation for the officer than suspecting that the driver is intoxicated.

Contact a San Antonio DWI Defense Attorney

Too many police officers and prosecutors believe that the resulting evidence of DWI justifies a traffic stop without reasonable suspicion. A San Antonio DWI defense lawyer at the Law Offices of Sam H. Lock can get your DWI charges dismissed if they were based on an illegal stop. Schedule a free consultation by calling 888-726-5625.

Source:

Texas has an implied consent law that states that a licensed driver has consented to chemical testing if a police officer has probable cause to believe that they have been driving while intoxicated. The law applies even when the suspect is unconscious and unable to give consent. When a DWI suspect is injured in an incident, the officer will often collect a blood sample from the suspect at the hospital, where there is a trained staff available to draw the sample. However, some hospitals have a policy against drawing blood from a patient who is unable to consent. This can lead to disputes between police officers trying to obtain evidence and hospital staff concerned about the patient’s privacy.

Recent Example

A nurse at a Dallas area hospital recently refused to allow police to draw blood from a DWI suspect until they presented a warrant. The male suspect had been involved in a car accident that killed two women. The man had been convicted for DWI five times previously, gotten off of probation five days earlier, and just had the ignition interlock device removed from his vehicle. A breath test showed no traces of alcohol, but the officer believed that he was intoxicated because they claim that he:

• Had been driving the wrong way at the time of the accident;
• Said he had been taking Xanax;
• Had bloodshot eyes; and
• Spoke rapidly.

Police arrested the man, who allegedly agreed to a blood test. After the suspect was taken to a hospital, a nurse told the officer that they could not do a legal blood draw on the suspect, claiming that the suspect could not consent to the test because he was intoxicated. The officer obtained a warrant to draw the blood sample from the suspect, who has been charged with two counts of intoxication manslaughter.