If you are driving in the Baltimore area this holiday season, you can expect increased police patrols. Police know the holidays are a time when many people celebrate - and drink - and they are on the look-out for anyone whose had too much and gotten behind the...
Drunk Driving
DUI Checkpoints Are Not A Free-For-All For Police
Thanksgiving is the unofficial kick-off to the holiday season. It's also the unofficial kick-off of increased DUI patrol.One of the tools Maryland police use to arrest drivers are DUI checkpoints. From Thanksgiving to the New Year you can - and should - expect...
Looking at Maryland’s drugged driving law, P.2
In addition to the points made in our previous posts regarding Maryland's drugged driving law, it is important to understand how implied consent works with respect to cases involving suspected drug impairment.Implied consent, for readers who are unfamiliar with the...
Looking at Maryland’s drugged driving law, P.1
In our last post, we mentioned a conference held for law enforcement last month in Ocean City which dealt with issues related to impaired driving, especially drug impaired driving. We also spoke of the potential for error in drugged driving investigations.When a...
Law enforcement conference focuses on impaired driving issues
Last month, law enforcement officers from across the state attended the first ever Maryland Impaired Driving Conference in Ocean City. The gathering, which was attended by 200 officers and deputies, focused specifically on drunk-driving enforcement.The conference...
Accuracy of alcohol testing an important matter in drunk-driving cases, P.3
We’ve been looking, in our last couple posts, at the importance of accurate blood alcohol testing in drunk-driving cases, and specifically about the importance of police routinely testing breath-testing devices for accuracy. The importance of this issue can be...
Accuracy of alcohol testing an important matter in drunk-driving cases, P.2
In our last post, we began speaking about the potential impact of blood alcohol concentration testing in drunk-driving cases. As we noted, blood alcohol testing can impact not only criminal penalties, but also administrative penalties, so it is important for...
Accuracy of alcohol testing an important matter in drunk-driving cases, P.1
In drunk-driving prosecution, accuracy is an important matter. One particular area where this is true is when it comes to determining a suspected drunk-driver’s blood alcohol concentration. In terms of drunk-driving penalties, the specific blood alcohol concentration...
“Retrograde extrapolation” in DUI prosecution, P.2
In our previous post, we began speaking about a technique sometimes used by prosecutors to estimate the blood alcohol content of a drunken driving defendant. As we mentioned, accurate retrograde extrapolation of blood alcohol content depends on a number of...
“Retrograde extrapolation” in DUI prosecution, P.1
For police officers, time is of the essence when it comes to getting an accurate reading of a suspected drunken driver’s blood alcohol content. Because alcohol dissipates in the blood, officers ordinarily work to get a suspect tested as soon as possible after arrest....