Illinois DUI Lawyer Blawg

Published on: February 18, 2010

In Illinois, blood test results are admissible in a prosecution for Driving Under the Influence (DUI)

An emergency room nurse in Chicago recently refused to draw blood from a patient at the request of police. The police suspected alcohol caused the accident for which the accused sought medical care.

The nurse insisted on first consulting her supervisor, and the article focused on the her lawsuit against the City for arresting her, an arrest she believed was unjustified. But the article also provides an opportunity for a discussion of DUI, hospitals, blood draws and the police.

According to government statistics, the chances of a DUI accident are pretty high. In 2007, over 250,000 crashes with injuries involved alcohol and another 13,000 were killed in such crashes. Those involved in such crashes often end up in the emergency room due to their injuries.

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Published on: February 11, 2010

Illinois Driving Under the Influence (DUI) and standardized field sobriety tests

By Theodore Harvatin

Recently in the news is that former Chicago Blackhawks star Chris Chelios was arrested in Illinois for DUI. As I viewed this online report from the Daily Herald, the following statement from reporter Jim Davis, who had viewed the DUI arrest video caught my eye:

I had heard that the field-sobriety tests are tough to ace, even to someone who might be stone-cold sober. So as Chelios struggled a bit with keeping his arms at his side, balancing on one foot and counting “one one-thousand, two one-thousand …” I was compelled to stand up and try this myself. I didn’t fall, but I wobbled and had to stretch out my arms for balance. And, for the record, I was stone-cold sober at the time.

Most of us have heard of the police asking you to “walk a straight line”. The United States Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has a name for this: Standardized Field Sobriety Test (SFST).

NHTSA defines the SFST as “a battery of three tests administered and evaluated in a standardized manner to obtain validated indicators of impairment and establish probable cause for arrest”. In other words, the officer will ask you to perform three tests, and your performance on those tests will be one of the factors he will use in deciding whether to arrest you for DUI.

The officer will usually capture your performance on the SFST with a video camera situated in his squad car. The three tests are the:

· Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN)
· Walk-and-Turn (WAT)
· One-Leg Stand (OLS)

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Published on: February 4, 2010

If you have a lifetime revocation of your Illinois Driver’s License, you will be unable to obtain a driver’s license in another state

By Theodore Harvatin

Illinois has a “four strikes” lifetime driver’s license revocation if you meet certain criteria. The factors that must be present for the lifetime revocation to apply are:

1) Your Illinois driver’s license is revoked because of a DUI.

2) You have four (4) or more DUI convictions. This includes convictions that occurred in Illinois, as well as any that occurred in another state. However, court supervision is not a conviction and will not count towards the four.

3) At least one of the DUI offenses occurred after January 1, 1999.

If the above conditions exist, Illinois will not be able to provide you with a hearing to ask for any type of driving relief, either reinstatement or a Restricted Driving Permit (RDP). What this means is that you will never be allowed to drive in Illinois for any reason.

Furthermore, if you attempt to obtain a license in any other state, or if you have a license in another state that they will not renew due to an Illinois hold, Illinois will not release the hold. As a result, your home state might not issue you a license.

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Published on: January 27, 2010

The Illinois Secretary of State can suspend your driver’s license due to drinking tickets or a fake ID

By Theodore Harvatin

The Illinois Zero Tolerance (ZT) Law provides that if you are under the age of 21 years and are stopped for a traffic violation and the police suspect you may have been drinking, they are entitled to ask you to take a breath, blood or urine test to determine if there is any amount of alcohol or drugs in your system. Even though the legal limit for driving in Illinois for a driver over 21 is .08, for a driver under 21, any amount of alcohol (or drugs, including marijuana) above zero is illegal.

Upon finding alcohol or drugs in your system, the police will issue you a Zero Tolerance ticket and report it to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State will suspend your license for three (3) months for a first offense. If you refuse to submit to testing, you will be suspended for six (6) months for a first offense.

However, you can and will also lose your license in other circumstances if you receive a ticket for illegal consumption or possession of alcohol, provided that you are an occupant of a motor vehicle. I will refer to these as drinking tickets.

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Published on: January 20, 2010

Your out of state license is on hold because the national registry (PDPS) flagged an Illinois Driving Under the Influence (DUI)

By Theodore Harvatin

You are probably reading this because the state in which you now reside either will not renew an existing license or will not issue an original one because the national registry has “flagged” an Illinois DUI. Your state’s DMV has informed you that before it can issue you a license, you must remove the Illinois hold. In order to accomplish this, you must have a hearing (either through a mailed-in packet or in-person) with the Secretary of State (which is Illinois’ DMV).

Each state is now required, before issuing a new driver’s license, or renewing an existing one, to check the national registry of driving records to determine if the driver has received DUI arrests in any other states. This new requirement, driven by Federal law, can affect both Illinois and out-of-state residents.

The system is known as Problem Driver Pointer System (PDPS), as it is designed to “point” other states to problem drivers. Because of PDPS, the days of jumping from state to state in order to avoid DUI revocations is over, and many drivers are finding their pasts catching up to them.

While on rare occasions the national registry misses DUI offenses, for the most part, it picks them up, even very old ones. This occurs even in those instances where a judge or lawyer many years ago assured you that the case would be dismissed, expunged, not go on your record, disappear or not otherwise “count”.

Even if the DUI itself was dropped, or was never charged, the arrest will show up if you were offered the breath test but refused to take it, or took the breath test and registered above the legal limit for that state.

Some states purge (remove) DUI arrests from their own records. (Illinois does not). However, despite being removed from the official driving record, the DUI is nonetheless likely to appear on the national registry.

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Published on: January 11, 2010

Breath Alcohol Interlock Ignition Device (BAIID) not always required for Illinois Driving Under the Influence (DUI) convictions

By Theodore Harvatin

Not every person who has a Driving Under the Influence conviction (DUI) is required to have the Breath Alcohol Interlock Ignition Device (BAIID) (“breath machine” or “blow machine”).

The Breath Alcohol Interlock Ignition Device (BAIID) comes into play in many but not all Restricted Driving Permit (RDP) and reinstatement cases. The purpose of the machine is to detect alcohol on your breath.

If you are issued an RDP and are required to have a BAIID, you must hire a licensed installer to place the BAIID in any vehicle you intend to operate while the permit is in effect. The vehicle will not start unless you blow into a tube that is connected to the motor vehicle’s ignition system.

In addition, while the car is moving, at random intervals you will be required to blow into the tube. The results are stored electronically in a computer chip that is part of the BAIID machine.

On a monthly basis, the results of the readings are electronically transmitted to the Secretary of State. If there are alcohol readings, the Secretary of State will mail you a letter requesting an explanation.

If the explanation is acceptable, that is the end of the inquiry. If the Secretary of State rejects the explanation and you are classified as alcohol dependent, the Secretary of State will cancel the permit or license. In that case, he will not give you a hearing to request a new license or permit for a year unless you successfully contest the cancellation by persuading a hearing officer that the alcohol readings and resulting cancellation were in error.

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Published on: January 4, 2010

Reinstating Illinois driver’s license due to DUI does not always require Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)

By Theodore Harvatin

You are not always required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings (AA) in order to reinstate your driver’s license or obtain a work permit (RDP) after losing your license due to a DUI.

Only if an alcohol or drug counselor or treatment provider has identified you as alcohol or drug dependent (Level III) must you provide evidence to the Secretary of State that you are involved in a support program to help you maintain abstinence from alcohol and drugs. In those circumstances, you must demonstrate to the Secretary of State a lifetime commitment to, and involvement in, your support program.

The Secretary of State readily recognizes the effectiveness of AA but understands that it is not for everybody. He will accept non-traditional support programs, examples of which could include church, friends and family, Rational Emotive Therapy (RET), Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT), self-formed step groups and any other program designed to help an alcoholic control, by relying upon others, the urge to drink. However, if the evaluator or treatment agency (alcohol counselor) has recommended that you attend AA as a support program, you must follow that recommendation or ask the provider of the recommendation to withdraw the AA recommendation and endorse your non-traditional support program.

You must not confuse the lifelong commitment to a support program with those situations in which a judge, probation officer or alcohol/drug counselor has directed someone to attend AA or Narcotics Anonymous (NA) during a limited period of time. Since the lifetime support program commitment applies only to alcoholics, if you have not been classified as an alcoholic, attending AA meetings voluntarily may cause the Secretary of State improperly to suspect you of being an alcoholic. Do not attend AA unless you have been ordered to do so or are an alcoholic.

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