Under Texas criminal law, pre-trial courts can impose restrictions as a condition of bail. The cost to the defendant for the use of these devices is around $75/month for an ignition interlock, and $300/month for a SCRAM bracelet. Midland county pretrial courts now have 5 scram units in use, and are looking to acquire more so they can monitor more defendants.

If you are facing a 2nd offense DWI charge in Texas, you are in need of immediate legal help to figure out what do you next. Please contact us for our free DWI defense consultation and case evaluation.

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Update:

Many counties are using Auto Ignition Interlock Alcohol Devices in second offense DWI cases. SCRAM bracelets are also being used in Travis County, and by many other Texas county pretrial courts.

The DWI charges were not forwarded to the DA for more than a year after the man was arrested in March 2003. The original judge in the case denied the motion to dismiss on the speedy trial grounds. The defendant pleaded guilty at the time (October 2004). However, the 13th court of appeals overturned that conviction in Feb 2007, reversing the results of the plea.

The judge Texas Criminal Court of Appeals determined that the appeals court was incorrect in overturning the conviction after analyzing the 4 elements of a speedy trial violation claim: length of delay, reason for delay, assertion of the right and prejudice to the accused.

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Appeals cases are a specialized area of the law.  If you are facing a current DWI charge in Texas, please contact us for a consultation. Or if you are interested in appealing a DWI conviction, we can help you, but you only have a very limited time to challenge a conviction result via an appeal. so do not delay.

Texas legislators who support the program hope to fix the law to allow these programs. Studies have show that needle exchanges clearly help reduce disease transmission in at risk populations of addicted drug users.

If you refuse to take a breath test, they will immediately take you to a medical facility as they process a warrant to extract your blood to test your BAC (blood alcohol content) to determine if you are over the legal limit for alcohol in your bloodstream while driving (aka DWI, driving while intoxicated in Texas).

Typically, a judge will approve the warrant.

This is certainly a questionable invasion of your rights to privacy, self-incrimination, and other serious constitutional issues.

Texas Defense attorneys argue that you have a clear right to refuse to take a breathalyzer test under the law, and this circumvents that right. Although it is true that under Texas’ implied consent laws, the DMV has the right to suspend your driver’s license for the refusal, as per your agreement as a condition of being a licensed driver in Texas.

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If you are facing a DWI in Texas, contact us for a legal case evaluation and free consultation on your defense options.

The landscape has clearly changed for the standards of criminal record checks in Texas and nationwide.

These checks are standard for all new hires, and as the news reports indicate, many public sector employees are being subjected to historical checks for all existing employees.

Consider what will happen when you apply for a job, and are considered one of a few leading, highly-qualified candidates. If the hiring decision comes down to you, with a mistake in your past, for which you plead guilty to a criminal charge, and someone with no criminal conviction - who do you think an employer is likely to choose?

A criminal record for a minor charge as a young person may not have mattered much back when that information was buried in a courtroom file. But everything is easily available electronically now, and will become even more searchable in the future.

Contact our Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers for advice on how you can avoid a criminal record if you are charged with a criminal offense in Texas.

Background checks are commonly done on new hires, but many of the nurses who who checked had been on staff for many years before such checks were common. No doubt many of these nurses have served hospitals with distinction, and helped thousands of patients. Yet, because of a past incident that could be trivial in nature, such a person possibly never would have been hired.

But now that criminal background checks are cheap, simple, and common, you need to consider the future impact of any Texas criminal conviction on your future career opportunities.

Any criminal charge can leave you with a permanent scar with will show up on any background search. And in the future, it is very possible, if not likely, that criminal records could be freely available to all via something as simple as a google search. Criminal court records are considered public information in most cases.

What Happens in A Texas DUI Police Stop?

If a police officer pulls you over for drunk driving, there is a good chance he already suspects you of being impaired before he sees you or smells your breath. Unless you were only pulled over for speeding (which is not an indication of drunk driving), most other forms of erratic driving are instantly suspect of being alcohol related by many police officers.

If by your driving behavior or manner after the stop, the police believe you could be impaired, the police will arrest you for drunk driving. Such behavior that may be indicative of impairment could include slurred speech, glassy or bloodshot eyes, being unsteady on your feet, or failing field sobriety tests given by the side of the road. These are the common facts cited in police reports of drunk driving arrests.

So even if no alcohol smell is present, the police will find other reasons to arrest you. They may suspect that you’ve masked the alcohol smell, or you could be arrested for DWI drugs. It is illegal to drive impaired on any substance, not just alcohol.

For more info on DWI laws in Texas, go to our main DWI criminal defense page.

Bad on the Facts, But Great Marketing

The name of the product is highly suggestive of defeating police, which seems like a dubious claim. But clearly the PR company for the product, AntiPoleez, is doing a fine job. The impressive thing about this campaign is that they are getting free publicity from the news organizations covering this “story”.

Addendum: Texas DWI Stats Watch

The article again publishes the stat that “Each year, 1,600 people are killed by a drunk driver in Texas.”, which is incorrect.

The actual stats from the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) state that there are 1600 “alcohol related deaths” each year in Texas. The definition of related is that one of the drivers involved is determined to have a BAC above .08. It has always been a pet peeve of mine how these numbers are compiled.

If there is a 10 car pileup where 3 people are killed, and the last car involved had a driver who had a .08 BAC. Are those legitimately alcohol related deaths? Alcohol had nothing to do with the accident, and it wasn’t caused by an impaired driver, yet those deaths would likely count in those stats.

NHTSA could fix this controversy by releasing and restating the raw stats to determine how many deaths are actually caused by drunk drivers. But they insist on always using the phrase “alcohol related” which makes me very suspicious. The only reason I can think of to categorize them that way is to pad the stats. And because when quoted in the media, it is always restated as a number caused by drunk drivers.

First, anyone who is arrested on DWI charges and refuses to take a breath test will be required to take a blood test. It is unclear how this “No Refusal” policy will be implemented, who or how will take the person’s blood, and under what time frame and conditions. And what are the legal implications of removing a person’s blood against their will? Do they need a court order?

The second initiative should be much less controversial. The prosecutor’s will be willing to reduce DWI charges and allow 1st time Texas DWI offenders to plead to a lesser charge in exchange for a strictly controlled alcohol programs. The “Take Responsibility” program will include a required ignition interlock device installed in the defendant’s car.

Under current Texas law, DWI offenders can be required to have a ignition interlock device installed at a judge’s discretion, so no new law is required for this program.

This may be a good deal for some people facing drunk driving charges in Texas, depending on the charge reduction, and the potential impact a DWI conviction might have on a person’s life.

This law would essentially turn the legal doctrine of reasonable doubt on it’s head in many criminal defense cases in Texas courts.

Prosecutors cite one hypothetical example where there is a fight in a parking lot, and a man is killed. If the defendant claims that the victim was trying to break into his vehicle, he gets the presumption of having the right to use deadly force under the Texas castle law as currently written. That means a jury would have to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant’s claim of defending himself was untrue, in order to convict him of a crime.

One possible compromise that may be worked out is to redefine the meaning of “travelling”, in defending your car while on the road. Or maybe that entire section should be scrapped, and the castle law restricted to one’s home or property, and not defined so broadly.

But if the law passes in it’s current form, and the defenses that prosecutors fear become reality, there is no doubt that the law will eventually be ammended. But by then, it is likely that some violence criminals will have gone free by exploiting this technicality in Texas’ generous gun and self defense laws.