» Entries tagged with "license"

Predictability

July 30th, 2015 | 1 Comment

The folks at the MVD tell me that, if you do your administrative suspension before you are convicted of DUI, you can get a restricted license after thirty days and avoid having to get expensive SR22 insurance. They say you won’t get those benefits if you are convicted first. Speaking with former clients, however, the ones who do the admin per se suspension first do indeed experience what the MVD predicted, but so do the ones who get convicted first. I haven’t called the MVD to argue with them about why they didn’t screw my clients like they said they would. The folks at jail tell me that, if the order of confinement for a day of jail says “one day,” they will hold my clients for a … Read entire article »

Filed under: DUI, Government Rants, jail

A Big Year For Marijuana DUI

January 23rd, 2015 | 2 Comments

In Arizona, a marijuana DUI used to be a pretty cut and dried thing. The law said it was a crime to be in actual control of a vehicle with marijuana “or its metabolite” in your body, and courts treated it as a strict liability offense for all metabolites, regardless of impairment. Marijuana DUIs were pretty much all charged under two subsections: (A)(1), which requires proof of impairment to the slightest degree, and (A)(3), the strict liability subsection that did not. Luckily, that changed when the Supreme Court of Arizona held last April that drivers cannot be convicted of the (A)(3) offense based merely on the presence of a non-impairing metabolite that may reflect prior usage of marijuana. As the opinion explained, THC is the primary psychoactive component … Read entire article »

Filed under: DUI

You’re Screwed Just The Same

September 23rd, 2014 | 1 Comment

Accomplice liability must be a tough thing to grasp, as I often hear defendants argue about how they shouldn’t be sent to prison for various things because it wasn’t totally their fault. They didn’t kidnap the victims, they just continued to hold them against their will after someone else snatched them. They didn’t assault the victims themselves, they just drove their co-defendants to the victims’ house to do it. I could go on and on. Addressing those sorts of arguments, I sometimes hear prosecutors and judges say that it didn’t matter to the victims who made what decision and who took over which responsibilities; they’re awful crimes, and all participants should face the music. In one case, the prosecutor asked, “do artificial distinctions comfort someone in a … Read entire article »

Filed under: DUI, Police

Guilty Until Proven…

August 22nd, 2014 | 4 Comments

Oh, who am I kidding? They aren’t even going to let you prove yourself not guilty. Not before it’s too late, at least. I’m talking about the Town of Gilbert again, and this time it isn’t your car or your money that they’re after. It’s your driver’s license. The situation where I was recently reminded of how evil Gilbert is involved a client who received notice from the MVD telling him his license was suspended for failing to appear for a court hearing in Gilbert. If you get stopped for DUI in Gilbert and they take a blood sample, which they probably will, you may have to wait for a summons from the court instead of getting a ticket and a court date right there at … Read entire article »

Filed under: Courts, DUI

The Inner Workings of Arizona’s Motor Vehicle Division

January 9th, 2012 | 4 Comments

Considering how Arizona is pretty much designed and built around the automobile and how the MVD has a remarkable amount of power to alter and even strip residents of their so-called “privilege” to drive, you’d think that its policies and procedures would be transparent, consistent, and easy to understand. Surprise, surprise, you’d be wrong. The MVD works in truly mysterious ways. Let’s say, for example, that you’re a criminal defense lawyer and you want to know the effect of a certain type of conviction on a client’s driver’s license. Specifically, you’re trying to figure out the MVD consequences of a conviction for driving in violation of a license restriction, A.R.S. 28-3480. I am personally quite familiar with the charge, though I didn’t have to worry about the … Read entire article »

Filed under: MVD Hearings

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