Khabibulin Gets Prison and Possible Pink Underwear – LALATE (blog)

Globe and Mail

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Nikolai Khabibulin Sentenced To Minimum 30 Day Jail Sentence – SB Nation

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Nikolai Khabibulin Sentenced To Minimum 30 Day Jail Sentence SB Nation Anybody hoping that the court in Maricopa County, Arizona would throw the book at Oilers goalie Nikolai Khabibulin for his DUI conviction was severely ... Khabibulin Gets Prison and Possible Pink UnderwearLALATE (blog) all 612 news articles »

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USA Today

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DUI Arrests Up in South Carolina: Some Say it’s a Fundrasing Tool

Arrests across South Carolina for driving under the influence are way up, road fatalities are way down and there’s disagreement as to why.

Spartanburg Solicitor Trey Gowdy told The GreenvilleNewshe believes the drop in highway deaths shows the latest reforms to the state’s DUI laws are working.

“I would say it’s a suc­cess,” he said. Others point to in­creased DUI arrests as well as an increase in seat-belt use by South Carolina driv­ers as the cause of the re­duced deaths. Joe McCulloch, a Colum­bia defense lawyer who has handled DUI cases for 30 years, said the new law has simply been a fundraising tool for state governmentat the expense of the rights of thosewhomight have been drinking but are innocent of DUI.

McCulloch said the in­creased DUI arrests are the result of more troopers being hired and a policy now being used nationwide of saturation arrests.

“Essentially, throw that net out, catch as many fish as you can,” he said officers and troopers are told.

“Even if you catch some who are innocent, it will all get sorted out at the jury. Officers are being told they need to err on the side of caution and not on the side of the presumption of inno­cence and that’s problem­atic.”

Mark Keel, director of the state Department of Public Safety, which over­sees the Highway Patrol, said every trooper must meet probable cause be­fore an arrest. However, he said it is true that law enfor­cement agencies are work­ing with local law enforce­ment officers using satura­tion arrests.

“It is part of the deterrent strategy,” he said.

DUI arrests by troopers are up by almost 20 percent since the new law went into effect in February 2009. DUI arrests since 2008 have increased by more than 4,000, or 32 percent, according to Public Safety records.

Keel said local law enfor­cement agencies also re­port significant increases. In fact, he said, the law en­forcement network that works with the Highway Patrol has already reached the DUI arrest numbers for all of last year.

That comes as road fatal­ities have dropped sharply. As of last week, there were 89 fewer crashes and 99 fewer people killed in road accidents year to date com­pared with the same period last year.

Deaths are also down significantly during the “100 deadly days of sum­mer,” a time period during which law enforcement of­ficials say a large number of people die in road acci­dents.

Keel calls the summer fa­tality drop, which was 87 as of Aug. 15, “phenomenal.”

In Greenville County, al­cohol- related fatalities have dropped from42 for the pe­riod of February 2008 to January 2009 to 26 from February 2009 to January of this year, Sheriff Steve Loftis said.

DUI arrests during that same period have in­creased from 421 to 445, he said. There have been eight alcohol-related deaths since February and 323 arrests, he said.

He believes the in­creased penalties of the new law are making a dif­ference.

“I think the new DUI law is having an impact,” he said.

The new law was gener­ally aimed at providing stiffer sentences for repeat offenders and those with high blood-alcohol levels. People are able to avoid jail on the first offense but do have to serve time for the second conviction and ev­ery one thereafter. They are also required to seek treatment.

The new law increases suspension periods from 90 to 180 days to six to 15 months, depending onhow many previous offenses the driver has. Drivers are still able to appeal their sus­pensions to the Office of Motor Vehicle Hearings and, if successful, continue to drive while awaiting trial. Greenville defense law­yer Steve Sumner, a former prosecutor who concen­trates on DUI cases, said he believes thenewlaw has had a deterrent effect be­cause of the increased pen­alties.

However, he said in­creased media attention on DUI and more DUI arrests are also deterring drivers.

“When you add up those three, there is a deterrent effect,” he said.

Laura Hudson, who leads public policy for the state office of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said she believes the in­creased arrests are the cause of any decrease in al­cohol- related crashes.

“It’s been my experience that the more enforcement we have and the more per­ception there is that ‘I am going to get caught,’ the less DUI fatalities we have,” she said.

McCulloch said most of those caught driving after drinking alcohol don’t re­peat their actions, no mat­ter what version of the law is in effect. And he said law enforcement officers are being told they can’t dis­miss their cases once the arrest is made, sending more questionable cases through the system.

“We frequently see cases where people admit that they have been drinking but then they pass two out of three field exercises,” McCulloch said.

He said he had just watched a case in which a person was given a hori­zontal gaze test, a test he said police contend is 80 percent accurate in detect­ing alcohol. The officer tes­tified that the driver passed, McCulloch said, but he still arrested him.

He believes such arrests are part of a strategy of scaring drivers by arrest­ing those who may have consumed alcohol, even if initial evidence doesn’t point to driving under the influence.

“While that might be a good psychological ploy to try and deter people from drinking and driving at all, it’s not really fair to the peo­ple who have the right to drink and drive because that is the law,” he said. “They just don’t have the right to drink too much.”

Court records aren’t yet clear on the impact of the new law.

For the June 2008 to July 2009 year, the most recent available, conviction rates for first-time offenders of both driving under the in­fluence and driving with a blood-alcohol level of .08 both are down from the previous year.

For the charge of DUI, the conviction rate, which includes guilty pleas and trials, went from 53.2 per­cent to 38 percent. For first offenders of the .08 law, the conviction rate dropped from 91 percent to 46 per­cent. The conviction rate percentage increased for subsequent offenses of DUI, records show.

Keel said a frequent com­plaint from troopers is that DUIcases are continued so much, sometimes for years.

“But I tell them, ‘What I would tell you to do is con­tinue to get that drunk driv­er off the road because one thing for sure is he doesn’t kill himself or he doesn’t kill somebody else that night. We have to worry about the court later.’”

Source

New App Measures BAC

Drinking just became much more high-tech. Funtoxication, an iPhone and iPod Touch application that measures users’ blood alcohol content, has been garnering attention recently for its fun, easy-to-use format and unique design.

Michael Tankenoff, owner of North Loop Media, LLC and creator of Funtoxication, came up with the idea last year as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. He didn’t see any apps that combined a Blood Alcohol Calculator with entertainment and decided to create his own.

Tankenoff partnered with TryCatch Games of St. Paul, Minn., to develop Funtoxication. It launched in the iTunes App Store recently for 99 cents, but Tankenoff has recently been promoting it as his schedule allows.

“There’s definitely been a good response. When it first came out, it was an interesting app because it was one of the few out there,” Tankenoff said. “… The BAC calculator and the taxi pop-up reminder and the games – those three elements have definitely set it apart from other apps.”

Funtoxication’s BAC calculator asks for a user’s gender, weight and age, as well as the type and amount of drinks consumed to estimate his or her blood alcohol content. It tracks the amount of time someone has been drinking in real time based on the initial starting point he or she indicates using a slider function.

When users hit the legal limit of 0.08, the program even offers them the option of calling a cab every time they open the app. If one chooses to call a cab, it locates a nearby taxi service using Google maps.

Have you already been accused of DUI? If so, you would be well advised to contact a Polk County DUI lawyer at our firm for a free and confidential consultation. You may be surprised at the results our Florida DUI lawyers can achieve for you.

Read further about the new app here.

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