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COGHLAN V. STATE – A12A2388 – The Nature of Evidence in a DUI Investigation

Coghlan v. State (2013) – Georgia Court of Appeals Around 2:00 a.m. on September 16, 2006, Donna J. Coghlan was pulled over for driving on the wrong side of the road. The officer approached the vehicle and noticed a strong odor of alcohol. When he took Coghlan’s license and walked back to his patrol car to […]

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CRIDER v. STATE – A12A2414: The Gray-Areas of Miranda and Initial DUI Investigations

Crider v. State (2013) – Georgia Court of Appeals Terri Crider was pulled over for failure to maintain the lane. When the officer made contact with Crider, he noticed the odor of alcohol on her breath, bloodshot and glassy eyes, and slightly slurred speech. Crider admitted to having been drinking and even said that she was […]

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JONES V. STATE – A12A1795: Is Implied Consent Dead?

Jones v. State (2013) – Georgia Court of Appeals On October 30, 2011, Robert Lee Jones was pulled over, and after a standard investigation, arrested for suspicion of DUI. The arresting officer read Jones his implied consent rights, specifically asking if Jones would submit to a blood test. Jones agreed and was transported to the jail […]

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Concern Grows Over Accuracy of Intoxilyzer 8000 and Other CMI, Inc. Breathing Testing Machines

Advancements in technology are supposed to mean just that: advancement, improvement. New generations of machines are meant to be stronger, sleeker, more reliable, more efficient, and more accurate than the last generation. Unfortunately, CMI, Inc., the company that manufactures the Intoxilyzer line of breath-testing machines, is bucking the trend. Since as early as 2009 there have […]

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Seated Field Sobriety Tests May Expose Questions of Reliability in Standard FSTs

Local officers in Pell City, Alabama have been trained and certified to conduct sit-down field sobriety tests to help investigate boating under the influence (BUI) on the nearby Coosa River. Proponents claim these sit-down tests could be used in roadside investigations as well: “the seated tests are useful if during a traffic stop the person […]

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Florida v. Jardines: stop sniffing my curtilage

In Florida v. Jardines, United State Supreme Court, Docket No. 11-564, Mar 26, 2013, Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in a 5 to 4 decision, in which Thomas, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Kagan, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Ginsburg and Sotomayor, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion, […]

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Some Perspective on the New Year’s 2013 DUI Season

In the 78 hours from 6:00 p.m. Friday, December 28th, to midnight January 1st, the associated press reported that Georgia state troopers made 321 Georgia DUI arrests, up from 262 reported last year. According to the most recent statistics, in 2008 Georgia had around 25,000 DUI arrests. Taking this as a general average, we can […]

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NAGATA V. STATE – A12A1957: Discrepancy in the Implied Consent Warning

Nagata v. State (2013) – Georgia Court of Appeals On December 12, 2009, Wataru Nagata was pulled over for failure to maintain a lane. When the officer made contact with Nagata he noticed the smell of alcohol and conducted an initial DUI investigation, which led to Nagata’s arrest. The officer then read Nagata his implied consent […]

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Former Utah State Trooper Accused of Falsifying DUI Evidence

The Associated Press reports that a former Utah state trooper and her superiors are facing a lawsuit concerning wrongful DUI arrests. Utah state trooper Lisa Steed built her reputation on nabbing DUI arrests, using an “uncanny talent — as one supervisor once described it — to garner hundreds of arrests, setting records, earning praise as […]

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