I go to Atlanta Municipal Court every week and I have noticed that lately (last few months) I almost nerve see any solicitation cases posted on the court calendars.

The biggie is DUI's.  There are more of those than just about anything else.  From what I can gather, its more of a HIDTA and DUI T/F focus than anything else in COA.

Also, I want to pass along a recommendation that's always brought up at the DUI seminars (I went to one last week).  When you leave ya fav bar, get a large styrofoam cup of sweet tea with lime (sugar not artificial sweetener).  the interaction of the tannic acid, sugar and oils in the lime wedges cleans out the alcohol mixer odors from the esophagus.  If you are pulled over and asked if you had any thing to drink, answer yes, sweet tea.  If you say you had a couple of beers,  PC to do field sobriety test!  Ethel alcohol has no odor, what LE smells when they approach you are the mixers in the drinks.

GT

Sounds like you are advocating drinking and driving along with tips on how to get out of it if pulled over. Not cool.

Drunk drivers kill people.

Ethel alcohol has no odor, but bourbon, rum, vodka, etc. have there own very distinct odors... Plus, I would think if you just lie to them and they do a sobriety test anyway (maybe because you were weaving which may be why they pulled you over in the first place) it would tend to make matters worse... just my 2 cents.

I did not mean if you are stumbling drunk.  If that's the case you need to take a cab.

The legal limit is .08, for me, 5'11'' 180 lbs. that's about 4 beers in one hour.  The legal limit used to be 0.15, then lowered to .10, then .08.  If between .05 and .08 LE can still make a case for impairment-unsafe driver.

A .05 for me would be about 2 - 3 beers in one hour.  I don't think  a .05 is an unsafe level.  that's when its recommended (not by me but the experts) that the sweet tea/lime remedy might be appropriate to help eliminate the smell of bourbon, scotch or whatever one was drinking.

And no, one should not lie to LE.  However, you do have a right to protect yourself from unreasonable laws.  I agree that DUI is a serious problem, but I don't agree that a .05 level is sensible for adults.

GT

If a cop can make any case against at all towards your being impaired, you shouldn't be driving (IMO), period. Slowed reactions are enough for terrible things to happen.

Neither is the multi billion dollar industry built upon the individual profiteering on the DUI suspects.

 I'm not condoning or defending Drinking and Driving; but if MADD and their judicial armbreakers REALLY wanted to curb this problem they would create legislation where all bars and restaurants serving alcohol put a taxi ramp to their front door and turn the parking lot into a garden.

Secondly the legal defense industry should be barred from advertising that they can do a blessed thing to help you because if you have a BA above .08 their ain't shit they can do except thank you for the $5,000.00 retainer that doesn't cover ANY trial/defense time which is what you NEED to quash or disallow the BA results in your prosecution.

Until the legislators put the brakes to all the subliminal messages from Madison Avenue, the restaurant industry, and the grand masters of legerdemain ‘the Defense Attorneys’; DUIs will just be another way to up the gross national product by fleecing the public. One sanctimonious delusional at a time.    
 

-- Modified on 4/20/2008 12:54:43 PM

hows about...until people hold themselves responsable for their actions and drink responsably it won't change.  You can blame who ever you want I guess just try blaming whos fault it really is.
When I was a bartender yrs ago we got sued for a dwi accident and they sued the bar and the bartenders as well.
It was tricky but we got off. I never served him but I was being held responsable just because HE said he was at the bar I worked in. It is everyones responsability to serve and not over serve but we are not baby sitters either.

Good counsel can make many problems go away, including a BA over .08.

BTW just like in restaurants and many other things, expensive does not always equate to good. Most, in fact almost all great attorneys are expensive, but not all expensive lawyers are even adequate. You always have to pay, but you don't always get what you pay for. Kind of like providers, If you don't do your research you have no one to blame but yourself.

Shouldn't this be in the Politics and Religion and or Legal Forums? This has nothing to do with Newbies.

-- Modified on 4/20/2008 1:11:54 PM

-- Modified on 4/20/2008 1:12:46 PM

Hostile Witness, as the son of an alcoholic father (now deceased) and the uncle of a 22 year old niece killed by a drunk driver Christmas night 10 years ago I have some experience with the problem.

My daughter's brother-in-law used to be a practicing attorney (he is now a law school professor) who specialized in DUI cases.  You are correct the cost was about $5,000 per case.  

He was VERY successful in getting his clients off even with the high breath tests by using the court system against itself.  He would ask for continuances until the ticketing officer was not in court, then he would get the case dismissed.  It sickened me to learn that is how the system works, but it shows again like the OJ case, the court systems seem to work differently with people with lots of money and people without enough to pay the price of a high cost attorney.

-- Modified on 4/20/2008 2:23:57 PM

I never said good counsel couldn't. What I said was they play to your justifiable fears and gleefully take your retainer; but then you find out that to have them "try" the validity of the blood alcohol test they're into you for another 5 to 10 thousand dollars above and beyond the retainer you paid them.

Unless you have maimed and killed a bus load of kindergarten students in your laps of judgment most John or Jane Bowlingleague would do better to just plead guilty, pay the fine, take the mandatory DUI/AA classes, community service/home confinement with a Martha Stewart ankle bracelet and have done with it for MANY MANY thousands less.

 Yeah; I got popped once. It was MY fault, I wrecked my car; but thankfully no one else was involved. For about 5 more years I gotta’ endure having every pizza pub and restaurant waitress look at me like I'm from another planet when I say NO to ordering a beer or cocktail with my chow. The night of my 'incident' I had been to a promotional where the ONLY liquid refreshment available was some zooty flavored vodka. In retrospect I wished I had poured it down a urinal and scooped some water out of the bathroom sink.      

I believe a person should hire the best counsel they can afford, especially when a DUI conviction never comes off your record and in many states even if your first and second convictions are separated by thirty years it is still a second conviction.

You will never convince me that accepting a plea that may come back to haunt me decades later is in my best interest.

that you make the kind of money that you can set such absolutes for yourself. For 90% of the population such absolutes and safeguards are pragmatically unaffordable.  


  “We got a million brothers in prison/ I mean, the walls are really rockin/But you can bet your ass they'd all be out/If they could pay for Johnny Cochran”
(Senator Jay Billington Bulworth)


-- Modified on 4/20/2008 3:27:39 PM

I hope there isn't a person out there that would rely on sweet tea and lime to cover alcohol breath. If that was the case there would be a lot more iced tea served in bars and restaurants.

GT please don't think that you could pass a breathalyser after drinking 4 beers in one hour. After sitting in a DUI school for a weekend and working part time with drug and alcohol addiction, I have learned it would be very hard for you to pass a sobriety test after drinking 4 beers in an hour.

These days I wouldn't count on anything coming off  your history.  When I worked at the Atlanta airport we had to have a background check. I couldn't believe what all I saw.  It doesn't seem even speeding tickets go away these days.

you are right, also Vodka has no odor by the way. And you couldnt pass its biologically impossable for your body to digest and free itself of the alcohol in that time. In 6hrs yes you could but not one. You are a bit buzzed by then so you only think you can.
Take a serve safe /Barcode class and get certified by fed guidelines and then tell me you can. You only think you can.

If you plan on drinking when going out take public transportation, use a designated driver, or you can always call a cab. The money you spend on transportation will be a lot less than any attorney fees you would incur.

Too many people have been hurt or killed by drunk drivers. Some people aren't good drivers to begin with, so why add alcohol to the mix.      

A drunk driving seminar that gives you tips on how to avoid detection after you have been drinking?

Yikes. How about you just call a taxi and pick up your car the next morning. Better yet, just have one drink if you plan to drive home.

Bartenders and other establishments that serve alcoholic beverages are not babysitters. It is not their job to police the decisions its patrons make.

Drunk driving laws save lives. The fact that they also generate revenue for the state and for sheister lawyers is secondary.

Oddly enough, even in the finest of restaraunts, I order a beverage that contains no alcohol - tea, soda, water, whatever. I never get any odd looks out of the wait staff. I simply don't drink. If I asked them for a glass of Kool-aid, then perhaps they would give me an odd look, but a glass of tea or water never bats anyone's eye.

Better yet if you want to ploughed..stay home and drink. Then if you fall staggering to your room you only hurt yourself and no-one else. I have zero tolerance for people (I use that term loosely) who drink and drive.

God help a person if they were responsible for hurting/killing someone I care about.

Well, I guess I am from another planet then.   Never drunk anything in my life, and never wanted too.

People who do not drink are much more common than you think.

You don't have to have a drink with dinner. I've been NOT having a drink with dinner for 22 years, quite happily, I might add.

but I don't find it odd at all that others do not. FWIW I believe in DUI laws, except of course when they apply to me. lol No, seriously thousands of people are killed every year by drunk drivers, and that is just not acceptable.

the financial consequences of having a DUI conviction on their record far exceed the cost of a good attorney. DUI convictions don't just go away after five years, they are the gift that keeps on giving, try forever. Once you've been convicted of a DUI there is no expungement possible and in many states even if you go twenty years without another one if you are ever arrested for another DUI you are facing serious consequences for a second conviction.

I would rather bite the bullet today and pay whatever it took to keep from getting a conviction for DUI on my record than pay the long term price for a conviction.

Point of the original post is simply that if you are in contoll of your self the tea/lime drink may help you avoid unnecessary LE inquiry about your sobriety when you are OK after a few drinks(and I mean a FEW drinks). Nothing more than that.

I won't bring this up again on this forum no matter what I may learn in the future about this topic.

GT

Sins I agree with you but the law holds the establishment and its employees responsable so it is the bartenders legal responsability to Not over serve. Too many cases where there is an accident and they turn on the bar and bartender whom served the patron.  Its a shame it has to be that way but it is. We as the bartender can be held responsable if there is an issue stemming from the fact that the patron was in your bar.

you may feel you are ok, but legally you may not be. Alcohol takes time to be digested. It is a widespread myth that after a few drinks most can drive away under the legal limits. After all thats really what you are trying to avoid from what you are saying. Being "ok" is an assumption you are making and seeing as you are legally impaired by then, I would say you are wrong. Do some research, you'll see. I have been in the bar biz for 25yrs plus I Know what I'm talking about.

Yes, in cases where the drunk sat at a single bar downing one drink after another liability can become an issue. But a bartender doesn't have control over what patrons do before or after leaving their establishment. Oftentimes a patron will go to one bar, have a few drinks, then bar hop to the bar down the street where they will have a few more. No bartender can be expected to know that a patron was already six sheets to the wind before they even came into their bar, and serve (or not serve) them accordingly.

Always great to hear about a successful recovery. Keep it up!!!

Brian

I am certainly not condoning drunk driving but if someone can responsibly have a couple drinks and be under the legal limit I see no issue with that...However.............
Not long ago I picked up a waitress friend at the restaurant where she worked...I had been home sleeping and not drinking when she called... When I arrived at the restaurant I had one drink,while waiting for her.When we left as soon as I turned onto the road from the parking lot LE pulled me over..He said I didn't use my signal which was bull as using turn signals is a involuntary reflex for me....even in parking lots.. I think he pulled me because she was hot and I am not.
He asked if I had been drinking and I said I just had one drink while waiting for her to get off..He had me do the close my eyes and lean my head back and stick one foot out and all kinds of goofy tricks I easily did.....so now he pulls out the breathalyzer.. I blew as hard as I could with no fear and the numbers started going up and up and up and stopped at .06....He said I was not legally drunk but I shouldn't be driving and he called a wrecker..I knew he had no right to do that but I wasn't in the mood for any trumped up charges so I called a cab for both of us...
 Morals of the story ..If I had eaten one piece of bread before I left I would not have had alcohol breath when he pulled me..
 You don't know how much you have been drinking unless you make your own drinks..

That's just my point, LE can be very unreasonable about impairment issue.  Obviously quadseasonal was not so impaired so as to be an unsafe driver if he only had one drink.

This is a good story to illustrate exactly what I submitted in the origianl post.  Protect yourself from unreasonable conduct on the part of LE.

GT

so true  but the way the laws are now they can legally hold us responsable and do. Too bad really.

I dont think tis unreasonable key is DON'T dfrink and drive simple as that end of story.