When motorists are pulled over for a suspected DWI, they may not always realize their rights or pick up on instances when police officers are making a mistake or following improper procedures. However, police officer DWI mistakes occur more often than people realize.

Here are three major police officer DWI mistakes.

1 Stopping a Suspect Without Sufficient Cause

Stopping a suspect with insufficient cause is one of the leading mistakes police officers make during DWI arrests. A police officer must have reasonable suspicion a driver is impaired. Reasonable suspicion is having reasonable grounds that an officer can point to specific articulable facts for suspecting that you are violating the law.

If you are driving dangerously, speeding, veering across the road, driving the wrong way, running a red light or committing another traffic infraction this can constitute reasonable grounds. An officer cannot conduct random stops.

When a police officer writes up his or her report the reason for the stop must be listed be it speeding, failure to stop at a stop sign or another traffic violation.

2 Incorrectly Administering Field Sobriety Tests

Field sobriety tests are fraught with inconsistencies and dangers which is why it’s advisable to decline these tests. There are three that are standardized by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). They are

• One-leg stand
• Walk and turn
• Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus.

These tests are intended to demonstrate that a driver’s coordination or his or her ability to follow instructions has been impaired by the consumption of alcohol. Often these tests are incorrectly administered.

The Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test involves a police officer holding up an object like a finger or a pencil in front of your face and asking you to track it while he looks at your eye movements. The officer is seeking evidence of involuntary jerking of the eyes called nystagmus which is associated with intoxication.

The test is frequently improperly administered. Police officers often fail to take into consideration the natural nystagmus that occurs in people who are not impaired.

These tests are often not reliable indicators of intoxication. Police fail to take into account factors like windy conditions, a slippery or uneven surface and other medical conditions.

3 Improperly Administering a Breath Test

Many motorists believe the breath test they are given is a reliable procedure. In fact, there are many ways a test can be incorrect and officer error can exacerbate the problems.

Breath tests are administered by blowing into a device called an Intoxilyzer. Texas uses the “Intoxilyzer 5000” or the “Intoxilyzer 5000EN. The device measures the amount of light absorbed in a particular substance. A high concentration absorbs more light and leads to a higher readout.

The machine translates the light absorption into a BAC value. If the concentration is .08 or greater, the officer can arrest you for DWI.

These tests may be inaccurate because an officer has not been properly trained on how to use it. The device may not have been correctly calibrated or it just may be defective

It’s well known that these machines have a rate of error of .02 allowable between two breath specimens. Other substances in your body that are non-alcohol or a burp can skew the reading. In some cases, another user may have contaminated the equipment.

These are three major errors police officers often make but there are many others. If you have been arrested for a DWI in the Fort Worth area or elsewhere, please contact our experienced Texas DWI attorneys today.

People convicted of drunk driving in Tarrant County may have underlying alcohol problems. The county is unusual in Texas in having a four-year alcohol intervention program. It’s a program that has its champions but is threatened by chronic underfunding.

In a recent interview, The Star-Telegram featured Farris Hamideh, a self-confessed “binge alcoholic” who was arrested three times in nine years for DWI.

Hamideh’s life was turned around by his participation in a Tarrant County court program that seeks to rehabilitate chronic DWI offenders.

Rather than incarceration, the program attempts to address the root cause of their crime – alcoholism.

The Star-Telegram reported the former DWI offender from Fort Worth, hasn’t drunk alcohol since he was arrested on July 4, 2012.

He is now employed as a self-employed car wholesaler. He survived two divorces and has maintained his relationships with two college-age daughters and fourth-grade son.

Hamideh said the four-year-long Felony Alcohol Intervention Program proved to be vital in keeping him off the bottle and prevented him from driving drunk.

The Star-Telegram reported the comments of officials that Hamideh and offenders like him should not have been in the Felony Alcohol Intervention Program in the first place.

The Texas Criminal Justice Division has determined four out of five participants in the probation program shouldn’t be in it.

The governor’s office stated data reveals most DWI offenders are at a small risk of being arrested again. Officials say programs of this nature are for high-risk offenders.

It’s an approach that reflects an ever-shrinking pool of cash to distribute to a growing number of court programs in Texas that are requesting larger grants. The restrictions led the state to strip the Tarrant County program of $140,000 it was sending to treat 150 participants each year.

At the Medlin Law Firm, we are well aware of the pressures that lead people to re-offend and the fact that jail is seldom the answer. These programs help go to the root of the issue.

If you have been charged with an intoxicated driving offense in Tarrant County, please contact us today.

Texas executed a Mexican national in the fall of 2017, despite an international outcry. Death row inmate Ruben Cárdenas was put to death despite a spate of 11th hour appeals and objections from his home country and United Nations human rights experts.

The execution went ahead on Nov 8, reported the Texas Tribune after the Supreme Court denied appeals made on behalf of the death row inmate.

Cárdenas gave a final address in which he thanked his family, friends, lawyers and the Mexican government for their help.

The Mexican death row inmate was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital. He was found guilty of the murder of his 16-year-old cousin Mayra Laguna in 1997.

Cárdenas said he entered his cousin’s room via an open window and kidnapped, raped and killed the girl before dumping her body near a canal.

Although the family of the victim celebrated the execution, it was controversial because of a failure to comply with international law.

Cárdenas was denied the chance to speak to his country’s consulate after his arrest more than two decades ago in violation of an international treaty.

There were other irregularities in the case. Cárdenas was not given an attorney until 11 days after his arrest. His representatives argued evidence against him was faulty and his confession was coerced by police.

Agnes Callamard and Elina Steinerte, independent experts with the U.N.’s Human Rights system, issued a statement reading:

“If the scheduled execution of Mr. Cárdenas goes ahead, the US Government will have implemented a death penalty without complying with international human rights standards.”

The United States is accused of flouting international law in numerous cases.

Under the terms of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, foreign nationals who are arrested must be told they can notify their consulate and receive regular consultation when they are held in detention.

More than a decade ago in 2004, the U.N.’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) found the United States violated the treaty in the cases of 50 Mexican nationals on death row, including Cárdenas

If you have been charged with a serious offense of this nature, call our experienced Fort Worth criminal defense lawyers today.

Policing of the mentally ill has been a major issue in Texas for decades with resources scant to help people with particular needs.

However, a new effort is underway in three Texas cities to proactively police the mentally ill, according to The Crime Report.

The publication cites the work of the Behavioral Intervention Unit (BIU) in the cities of Hurst, Euless, and Bedford.

These are cities in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan region. Their work is based on a modified Crisis Intervention Team program developed more than 10 years ago by Ken Bennett, a local mental health coordinator, as well as the Hurst Police Department.

The strategy relies on the improved integration of mental health clinicians and police.

It’s a proactive approach. In these three cities, the Behavior Intervention Unit deploys teams of clinicians and police officers who patrol each weekday seeking people suffering from a mental illness.

The teams aim to intervene before a crisis situation occurs.

The approach recognizes the fact policing the mentally ill has become a crisis not just in Texas but elsewhere in the United States.

Mental health funding has been on the frontline for cuts for decades and increasingly jails filled up with mentally ill people.

The Atlantic recently reported how 55 percent of male inmates and 73 percent of female inmates in jails have a mental illness.

In the article Nick Selby, a Texas police detective said he recognized how the Sandra Bland Act, signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in June, may have a profound impact on how the U.S. handles mental illness.

The Sandra Bland Act was criticized by family members after moves to change the arrest powers of police were dropped from the legislation.

However, some of the provisions relating to mentally ill people in jails survived. The Sandra Bland Act instructs county jails to divert people who are suffering from mental health and substance abuse issues toward getting treatment.

Defendants arrested with a mental illness or intellectual disability should receive a personal bond under the new law. Independent law enforcement agencies would investigate deaths at Texas jails.

Jails are very frightening places for defendants. Your problems are likely to be exacerbated if you are suffering from a mental illness. If you have been charged with a crime, please call us today for a free consultation about your case.

The DWI process in Texas may seem intimidating and confusing, particularly if you have been arrested for the first time. Texas takes an uncompromising stance with drunk drivers and police officers may not explain the process well. Here are some of the steps in the process.

The Stop

The DWI process almost always starts with a roadside arrest. A police officer or state trooper needs “probable cause” to stop you in the first place. Police officers cannot randomly pull over motorists.

Many arrests still involve field sobriety tests and questioning. Typically, suspects are given a roadside breath test.

The Breath Test

Intoxication is defined under the Texas Penal Code. A suspect will be deemed to be intoxicated if he or she operated a motor vehicle while being intoxicated. This is defined as not having the normal use of mental faculties, physical faculties or having a blood/ alcohol concentration of 0.08 or greater.  The cause of the drunkenness must be a substance induced into the body or a combination of substances.

Evidence from a portable breath test machine can’t be used in court. The test that matters is the evidentiary breath test using the Intoxilyzer 5000 or the Intoxilyzer 9000, machines that the police have at the police department.

Before a suspect is taken into custody police must give a statutory warning. They should tell the suspect that their license could be suspended for 180 days if they refuse the breath test. Additionally, if they fail the breath test, their license could be suspended for 90 days.

If your test is over 0.08 BAC, the officer should confiscate your driver’s license and replace it with a sheet of paper which acts as your temporary driving permit (called a DIC-25).  This document is valid for 40 days or until your Administrative Law Review hearing if you decide to appeal the diver’s license suspension.

If your breath test result is below a 0.08, you should retain your license but you can still be prosecuted for driving while intoxicated. The police officer may tell a court you did not have the normal use of your mental or physical faculties due to the consumption of alcohol or drugs.

The Blood Test

The police officer may also apply for a search warrant to draw blood under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 18.  The officer may try to seek a warrant for an involuntary blood draw from a judge.  This is not a rubber stamping process. It may make sense to refuse a breath test in favor of a blood test. Often when a person refuses the breath or blood test, the officers don’t choose to get a warrant.

The Bond Process

Often DWI suspects are put in a police cell but later released on bond. This means you were released on the condition you go back to court to face charges when they are filed by the District or County Attorney’s Office.

Your activities while on bond may be monitored. Often DWI defendants have an interlock ignition device fitted to their car which will not allow them to drive it if they have been drinking alcohol.

Judges are becoming far more aggressive about ordering ignition interlock devices as a condition of bond in recent years.

The Driver’s License Suspension Hearing

The driver’s license suspension hearing is an administrative hearing when the defendant appeals the officer’s DWI arrest.  You have just 15 days to appeal this decision to the Texas Department of Public Safety from the date of arrest. A DWI defense attorney can handle this for you.

If you fail to appeal or if the appeal is denied, you can apply for an Occupational Driver’s License. An ODL is available for most drivers on a first DWI arrest but is severely limited on a second or subsequent drunk driving arrest.  The ODL may allow you to drive for up to 12 hours a day for work, shopping or other household tasks.

The Criminal Case

In most DWI cases, you will be prosecuted by the District or County Attorney’s Office.  The courts require you to be at court on a number of occasions until the case resolved.

The Resolution of Criminal Cases

The criminal case is typically resolved in one of three ways; by a guilty plea, a trial or a dismissal.

Many DWI cases go to trial. Although DWI defendants may fear the odds are stacked against them, these cases are very winnable. If you are found not-guilty, you will be able to expunge the arrest.

A new law in Texas allows first time DWI offenders to conceal the crime under certain circumstances.

Post-Conviction

Even after you are convicted, you are not off the hook for charges in Texas. You are responsible to pay the Texas Department of Public Safety a controversial surcharge for three years to keep your driver’s license.  This ranges from $1,000 to $2,000 a year, depending on the circumstances.

You should never take a DWI charge lightly in Texas. Contact our experienced Tarrant County DWI defense lawyers today for a free consultation about your case.