Monthly Archives: June 2014

King County Sheriff’s Deputy Arrested for DUI

A King County sheriff’s deputy who crashed his patrol car while on duty in February has been charged with hit and run and driving under the influence. Deputy Mark Rockwood had just started his shift before 7 a.m. on February 28 when dispatchers began getting calls about his driving. Rockwood, who was in a Shoreline… Continue Reading »

PA Lawyer Accepts Oral Sex as Fee

Applying a new Pennsylvania legal ethics rule for the first time, the state’s supreme court has OK’d a one-year law license suspension for a suburban Philadelphia lawyer who admitted he accepted oral sex as a fee for representing a client in a driving-under-the-influence case. David H. Knight agreed to the attorney disciplinary sanction and was… Continue Reading »

AZ Supreme Court Rules No THC No Conviction

Drivers whose blood carries trace amounts of a metabolite of marijuana can not be found guilty of driving while intoxicated unless there’s actual evidence that the drug impaired them, the Arizona Supreme Court found on Tuesday. A trial judge dismissed the charges against the man, who in a pretrial motion argued that the blood test did not… Continue Reading »

Downward Trend in Number of DUI Arrests

The Washington State Patrol now has a full year of data covering driving arrests and crashes since private retailers took over liquor sales. Despite hard alcohol being much more widely available, there was no increase in DUIs and drunk driving accidents. Jason Mercier with Washington Policy Center compiled the numbers from Washington State Patrol statistics.… Continue Reading »

Felony DUI = Greater Consequences

State lawmakers in Colorado recently proposed a bill that would have made repeat DUI offenses a felony, similar to our laws here in Washington State. However, for now, it appears the Colorado state legislature has rejected the proposal. Under the proposed law, anyone who would have been arrested for three drunk driving offenses in five… Continue Reading »

IID Subsidy Delimma

Not so shockingly, funding to help low-income DUI offenders in Washington afford ignition interlock devices has apparently dried up. The subsidy comes from fees paid by DUI offenders purchasing an ignition interlock device. Somehow, it appears, the money for the program was somehow funneled into a separate account for prison inmate treatment programs during the… Continue Reading »

DUI Checkpoints? We Shall See …

With the ever changing DUI laws in our state, one has to wonder how far off DUI check points are from again being on our Washington roadways.  Although our Washington state Constitution protects individual privacy interests in our homes and our private affairs, and although in 1988 our State Supreme Court held that sobriety checkpoints… Continue Reading »

Driving Patterns that can Lead to DUI

Word to the wise … virtually all Washington traffic enforcement officers are trained on how to detect and process DUI suspects. Many are in fact trained in accordance with National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) standards. Many years ago NHTSA compiled a list of certain “driving patterns” to alert police of potentially impaired drivers. NHTSA… Continue Reading »