Illinois DUI Lawyer Blawg

In Illinois, "driving under the influence" (DUI) is a shortcut term for a legal offense. The phrase may work in casual conversation and in news reports. However, Illinois law defines the offense of DUI in a very specific manner.

In the American judicial system, there are several ways in which laws are made. Our elected representatives can vote to pass laws that are known as "statutes". For example, the Illinois General Assembly www.ilga.gov voted for a statute banning smoking in public places.

Starting over 500 years ago, English judges were called upon to resolve disputes among the citizenry. Over the years, the judges laid down various rules that were designed to govern a given factual situation.

These judge-made rules are known as the "common law". Many common law concepts migrated to the United States when the colonists arrived here. Because of the common law, you cannot build a fence on your neighbor's property.

If the General Assembly does not like the common law, it can vote to change it. Under common law England, for instance, a tenant had almost no rights because a landowner was considered superior to a renter. Now there are many statutes that protect tenants. If your house or apartment burns down, you can stop paying rent. That was not true under the common law.

Neither a statute nor the common law, however, can make a law that is contrary to the United States Constitution. The Constitution plays a particularly significant role in protect the rights of those charged with crimes, including DUI. Thus, any law must be measured against the rights secured to you under the Fourth Amendment (no unreasonable searches or seizures).

There are over 300 million people in this country engaged in billions upon billions of interactions. No Constitution, statute or common law rule can possibly account for all the possible scenarios that are bound to arise in those circumstances. Therefore, judges are called upon to give their best estimate of how a Constitutional provision or statute had intended to address a given situation.

The DUI statute provides that "[a] person shall not drive or be in actual physical control of any vehicle within this State while under the influence of alcohol." It does NOT require the police to prove that they 1) saw you driving 2) a truck, car or motorcycle 3) drunk.

Continue reading "The legal meaning of "Driving Under the Influence" (DUI) " »

Since 1986, Illinois law has had in place the Statutory Summary Suspension (SSS) law. If, in connection with a DUI arrest, the police ask you to provide a breath or blood sample to analyze your alcohol level, you have the choice of whether to submit or refuse.

If you submit and register over the legal limit of .08, your driver's license will be suspended automatically on the 46th day after you provide the sample. If you have not had a DUI arrest in the previous 5 years, your license will be suspended for 6 months.

During the first 30 days of the suspension, you are prohibited from driving. For the final 5 months of the suspension, you are entitled to a Monitoring Device Driving Permit (MDDP). That permit allows you to unlimited driving privileges, but you must install a breath machine (BAIID) in your vehicle.

If you register over .08 and have had a DUI arrest in the 5 years before you provide the breath sample, your license will be suspended for 1 year. You cannot receive any type of driving privileges, even a hardship permit, during the year.

The law is designed to encourage you to provide a breath or blood sample because doing so usually makes it easier for the state to convict you of DUI. Therefore, if you refuse to submit a sample and have not had a DUI for at least 5 years, your license will be suspended for a full year. You are entitled to an MDDP during the last 11 months of the suspension.

If you refuse to provide breath or blood and it has been fewer than 5 years since you had a DUI arrest, you will be suspended for 3 years. You cannot drive at all during the entire 3 years.

Although an SSS occurs even if you beat the DUI charges your license will only be suspended. As soon as the suspension is over, your driving privileges will restored upon payment of the fee provided you are not convicted of the DUI.

But if you do not beat the DUI charges, the Secretary of State will revoke your driver's license. A revoked driver's license can only be restored through a driver's license reinstatement hearing. However, until now, before the revocation could occur, the law had usually required the state to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that you were guilty of DUI.

Continue reading "Driver's license revocation in Illinois for refusing Breathalyzer" »

In the context of Driving Under the Influence (DUI) arrests, Illinois offers three sentencing options. You ought to be aware of these if your DUI lawyer concludes that your Constitutional rights have not been violated, if the state has complied with all procedural requirements and if the evidence against you suggests the state can prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Most people unfamiliar with the criminal justice system consider crime to consist of offenses such as murder, rape and robbery. They are crimes, felonies. However, DUI is also a crime, a lower level crime known in Illinois as a misdemeanor. (In some circumstances, DUI is a felony but a first or second offense is a misdemeanor).

An act is a crime if our elected officials (the Illinois General Assembly) have declared that committing the act is illegal and if the consequences of committing the illegal act include monetary fines and/or jail or prison time. "Jail" refers to incarceration (lock-up) in the county jail; "prison" refers to incarceration in a state prison under the control of the Illinois Department of Corrections.

You may be aware that a DUI arrest also carriers with it driver's license consequences. Thus, your driver's license will be suspended if you decline to provide the officer with a breath or blood sample at the time of the arrest, or if you provide a sample that is above the legal limit of .08.

Likewise, if you are convicted of DUI, your driver's license will be revoked. Unlike a suspension, which ends automatically, you may, following a driver's license revocation, only get your license back by having a driver's license hearing.

Continue reading "Illinois DUI supervision or probation" »

It has not (yet) reached the point where the police can stop the operator of a motor vehicle for no reason whatsoever. You are protected from "unreasonable searches and seizures". Judges decide where to draw the line between reasonable and unreasonable searches and seizures.

When you are in your house, the police are generally required to have more evidence before they can search your property and seize (arrest) you. In a motor vehicle, you enjoy a lower level of protection from unreasonable searches and seizures.

The police cannot stop a citizen just because "you look suspicious". Courts have held that the police must have specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant the intrusion that a stop involves. These are known as invesitgatory stops.

If the police directly observe you committing a traffic violation, such as speeding, they are entitled to stop you for a brief enough period to investigate the traffic violation. That is where your troubles can start.

Once they do stop you for a routine traffic offense, they may then further their investigation if they believe you may be driving under the influence of alcohol. Common signs are an odor of alcohol, bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, open containers in the vehicle and difficulty locating your driver's license, registration or insurance card.

The police are also entitled to investigate if they find you pulled over to the side of the road, or asleep in your vehicle or after you have been involved in an accident, even if the accident was not your fault. They are also, under proper circumstances, permitted to erect DUI roadblocks.

It can be more complicated when the police do not actually observe you committing an offense but have reason to believe that you may have. A citizen's complaint, from someone whom the police have reasonable grounds to believe is reliable, will justify a stop.

Continue reading "Investigatory stops and Driving Under the Influence (DUI) charges" »