Articles Posted in DUI/OVI laws and cases

State v Codeluppi page one.jpgTwo days ago, the Ohio Supreme Court issued a decision clarifying how specific a motion to suppress must be for the defendant to receive an evidentiary hearing on the motion. In State v. Codeluppi (2014), the Court concluded: “[A] highly detailed pleading of the facts and law is not required to satisfy the Shindler notice requirements and to trigger the right to a hearing on the motion to suppress.” This conclusion affirmed the Court’s decision from a decade ago in State v. Shindler (1994). The Codeluppi decision hopefully will end uncertainty about the specificity required for motions to suppress in Ohio DUI/OVI cases.

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Speed limit sign.jpgIn most Ohio DUI/OVI cases, the evidence includes police officer testimony and police cruiser video. Officer testimony is sometimes not corroborated by the recording from the cruiser video. In such a situation, a judge or jury has to decide if they believe the officer or their own eyes. Such a situation arose in the recent case of State v. Jarosz, and the judges believed their eyes.

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Bill of rights.jpgThe caller was anonymous, and there was little evidence corroborating the caller’s claim. He or she called 9-1-1 and reported she was driving southbound on Highway 1 and was just run off the road. The caller described a silver Ford F150 truck with a California license plate. It did not take long before officers spotted a silver F150 and pull it over based on the anonymous caller’s report. After stopping the truck, the officers ended up finding and seizing marijuana. The question is whether this stop was lawful.

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From your bathroom scale to a police officer’s laser gun, every measurement device has a margin of error. For a device to be considered reliable, the margin of error must be known (and should be small!). In a recent Ohio DUI / OVI case, the court decided the admissibility of test results from a device with an unknown margin of error.

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Rules-and-Regulations-300x278As a DUI/OVI attorney, I am frequently asked if a person can seal/expunge records for DUI/OVI offenses and other traffic offenses. The answer is “no”: Ohio Revised Code section 2953.36 says the records for DUI/OVI convictions and other traffic offense convictions cannot be sealed. Therefore, a conviction for DUI/OVI or other traffic offenses is a permanent record.

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Walk and turn photo.jpgStandardized field sobriety tests (SFSTs) are administered in nearly every DUI/OVI case in Columbus and central Ohio. A previous post in this blog analyzed the standard for admitting the tests as evidence in court: the SFSTS must be administered in substantial compliance with the officers’ training manual for the tests to be admissible. A recent case in an Ohio appellate court applied that standard and concluded the tests were not admissible in Middleburg Heights v. Gettings.

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But for a technical legal issue that may only be interesting to an Ohio DUI/OVI lawyer, the case of State v. McMahon would be pretty generic. An officer pulled him over for speeding, noticed the odor of alcohol, administered field sobriety tests, arrested him, gave him a breath test on an Intoxilyzer 8000, and charged him with O.V.I. McMahon filed a motion to suppress the results of the breath test, claiming the Department of Health was required to make rules for obtaining ‘operator access cards’ (to operate the I-8000) and never did. The trial court agreed with McMahon and threw out the breath test.

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Map showing Las Vegas and Lake Mead.jpgWhat happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what happens near Vegas gets broadcast for the world to see. That’s what Erin Brockovich found out a few days ago when she was charged with Boating Under the Influence on Lake Mead, just outside Las Vegas, Nevada.

After reading the news coverage of her case, I compared the B.U.I. laws of Ohio and Nevada and concluded Ohio has relatively tough sentences for boating under the influence.

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Video-camera-in-cruiser-300x256For the second time in two months, the Ohio Supreme Court decided a case interpreting the discovery rules that apply to Ohio DUI/OVI cases and criminal cases. A previous post in this blog discussed ‘recent’ changes to the rules for discovery, the exchange of evidence between the prosecution and defense. In March of 2013, the Ohio Supreme Court decided the case of State v. Darmond and addressed how sanctions are to be imposed for violations of the discovery rules. In May of 2013, the Court issued a decision addressing when the obligation of providing discovery is triggered for the defense.

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William Strebler was lucky and unlucky. When he drove his car between two parked trucks, nobody was killed or injured. That’s pretty lucky. After he was found guilty of driving under the influence of his prescribed pain medicine, his conviction was affirmed by the court of appeals, and he had to serve two years in prison. That’s not-so-lucky. His case illustrates the importance of trial strategy in Ohio D.U.I./O.V.I. defense and also demonstrates the difficulty of enforcing D.U.I./O.V.I. laws when the substance in question is a prescription medication.

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