Plano DWI Lawyer Blog

We are often asked about the "cost" of a DWI. There are many hidden costs to a DWI other that the potential criminal punishment. Most people don't realize, or are not told, about these hidden costs until after it is too late. Hidden costs may range from loss of job opportunities, education opportunities, raised insurance rates, driver's license surcharges, probation fees, etc.

In the article below by Christopher Solomon entitled "DUI: The $10,000 ride home", some of the hidden cost of DUI/DWI are explained. If you are currently facing a DWI/DUI charge, I highly recommend you read the article. Her it is in its entirety.

DUI: The $10,000 ride home A fine is just the start of what you'll pay for a drunken-driving conviction. Insurance-rate increases, legal bills, alcohol treatment and licensing fees can push the cost into five figures. By Christopher Solomon

If you need any more reasons not to drink and drive, consider this: A driving-under-the-influence conviction is a financial wrecking ball. A typical DUI costs about $10,000 by the time you pay bail, fines, fees and insurance, even if you didn't hit anything or hurt anybody.

The penalties are intended to be discouraging. Alcohol played a role in nearly 40% of U.S. automobile fatalities in 2005. That's 16,885 deaths, a figure nearly unchanged over the past decade, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

But states are cracking down. The last of the 50 states have lowered their thresholds for DUI to 0.08% blood-alcohol content. Police arrested 1.37 million people last year for driving under alcohol's grip, about one in every 140 licensed drivers, the FBI says.
But forget the humiliation and hassle for now. Forget the toll on lives. Just look at what a DUI does to your wallet:

Bail. You'll have to shell out bail to get released after your arrest. Cost: $150-$2,500.
(Costs shown in this article are for first-time DUI offenders. Costs and penalties are often more severe if you're a repeat offender or your blood-alcohol content is above 0.15%.)

Towing. When you're arrested, your car gets towed. In some places, retrieving it costs only $100 or so. But Chicago, sensing a moneymaking opportunity, ensures it really hurts: The city charges about $1,200 for the first 24 hours and $50 for each additional day of storage, says Chicago DUI defense attorney Harold Wallin. If you can't afford to get your car after 30 days, the city auctions it and then comes after you with a civil judgment for the impoundment bill, if the car's sale didn't cover the fees. Some cities around Chicago are doing the same, Wallin says. Cost: $100-$1,200.

Insurance. One of the biggest hits a drunken driver takes is in his insurance premiums.
"If you get a DUI conviction, it will likely affect your insurance rates for (at least) the next three to five years," says Carole Walker, the executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association.

How much? "They could double, triple, even quadruple," Walker says. Some companies such as State Farm Insurance will move you to a portion of the company that handles higher-risk policies.
But "many insurance companies will drop you even upon arrest, regardless of conviction," says Steven Oberman, a Knoxville, Tenn., DUI attorney. And if your policy isn't renewed, you'll have to try to find insurance someplace else or see whether your state has an assigned-risk pool for insurance. Either way, you'll pay for it. For example: Illinois estimates that the high-risk insurance costs an additional $1,500 a year for three years, on average.
Why three years? Most insurance companies look at records for at least three years and sometimes for five years, Walker says. To begin rebuilding your reputation in an insurer's eyes, you have to keep your nose completely clean -- no speeding tickets or other traffic citations.
The roadside embarrassment is just the start. Watch out for the hidden cost of a traffic ticket. Don't pay the price if you don't have to.

But the financial impact of that DUI doesn't end after three years: You'll likely have to go as many as five more years, incident-free, to get back to the "preferred" status with the lowest premiums that you perhaps once enjoyed. In short, "it can be up to eight years afterward" that the DUI can affect you, Walker says. Ouch. Cost: $4,500 or more.

Legal fees. Attorneys might charge as little as $500 to enter a quick plea. But with so much at stake, many people accused of DUI fight the charge. That's when things start to add up.
Attorney Oberman says legal representation can cost anywhere from $2,500 to $25,000, depending on the rigor and complexity of the defense. But that's not the only fee. Oberman says a vigorous defense sometimes requires hiring an investigator ($1,000 to $3,000) to examine the arrest scene to poke holes in the arresting officer's story. There may be a need for expert witnesses who can testify about the accuracy, or lack thereof, of field sobriety tests ($3,000 and up). Usually, attorney Wallin says, fees are $2,000 to $3,000 for a trial on a first-offense case, although they can climb to $7,500 or more with some lawyers. "A lot of times, my fees are some of the smallest expenses that people have to worry about," given all the other costs, he says. Cost: $2,000-$25,000.

Fines. Fines and court fees for breaking the law range from state to state, from a minimum of $300 in Colorado and $685 in Washington to as much as $1,200 in Illinois. "The fines have gone up dramatically over the last few years in Illinois," says Wallin. "A few years ago in Chicago, the typical DUI fine was about $300 on the first offense. And now it's $900 to $1,200." Cost: $300-$1,200.
Alcohol evaluation. An evaluation is usually required of anyone who is sentenced by the court for drunken driving. Cost: $181 in Colorado, for example.
Alcohol education and treatment. If you're convicted, you usually have to undergo an education or treatment program, especially if you want to get your license again. Treatment can vary hugely in scope and extent. Cost: $350-$2,000 for basic treatment.
License reinstatement fees. Once a driver has shown, by completing courses and treatment, that he deserves his license back, the state charges him for the reissue. Cost: $60-$250.
Additional fees. Colorado, for example, will slap you with myriad other fees:
• $10 jail filing fee.
• $78 Victim Assistance Fund payment.
• $25 Victim Compensation Fund payment.
• $90 for the Law Enforcement Assistance Fund.
• $15 Brain Injury surcharge.
• $25 Victim Impact Panel assessment.
If you had been particularly drunk, a judge might order that an ignition lock be placed on your car to test your breath and prevent your car from starting if you're intoxicated. In Tennessee, for example, this costs $65-$70 a month. Cost: $308 and up.
The unexpected and sometimes unquantifiable costs

Finally, there are several other costs that you need to remember:
• Life-insurance-premium increases. With a DUI arrest or conviction, you could see an increase in your life-insurance bills because insurers may ask if your license has ever been suspended.
• Lost time = lost money. People who've gotten DUIs report missing a lot of work (and therefore losing a lot of income) dealing with their mistake, as a result of court dates, community service and sometimes a jail sentence. That doesn't even count the lost free time.
• Lose the license? Lose the job. For many people who need to drive to and from their jobs -- much less those who drive for their jobs -- losing a license can be devastating. And here's a shocker: In several states, including Washington, your license may be suspended for 90 days simply upon your arrest for DUI, regardless of whether you end up being convicted. If you're convicted, your license can be revoked for a year, or longer in other states, until you complete all the court's requirements and pay all fines.
• No drunks in the cockpit or the ER. If you're a doctor, stockbroker, airline pilot, lawyer or nurse, a DUI conviction could affect the status of your professional license, Oberman said.
• It's not good for the résumé. A DUI lingers on your criminal record for employers to see if they do a background check, harming your future job prospects. In Washington state, a DUI conviction also stays on your driving record for 14 years, and an employer can ask for and receive that information.
Adding it up
So in the end, how much does a DUI cost?
The STOP-DWI Office in Erie County, N.Y., estimates that a drunken-driving conviction there costs $9,500 -- if no one is injured and there's no accident. Colorado estimates about the same thing.
Illinois' secretary of state pegs the amount closer to $10,600 but says the figure would be nearly $15,000, on average, if people counted the lost income from all the hassles.
Any way you slice it, it's a pricey mistake.
But the biggest thing that's lost isn't money, Oberman says. "The biggest thing here is the stigma that you get. Everybody looks at you and says, 'Yeah, he's the drunk driver.' And the stigma doesn't have a financial cost. But the stigma does have both a social cost and an employment cost."

Posted by Troy P. Burleson | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Texas DWI Basics

Bookmark:

As many of you may have read or heard about, a Tarrant County judge was recently arrested for DWI. The arresting officer obtained a blood warrant and the judge was forced to provide a specimen of her blood. The defense successfully challenged the validity of the warrant which resulted in a ruling that the blood test result would not be allowed to be presented as evidence during the prosecution.

Apparently, this ruling did not go over well with Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow who wrote the following article in the Morning News:

Plenty of blame to go around in Tarrant judge's DWI case

06:38 AM CST on Thursday, January 29, 2009

STEVE BLOW

A week has passed and I'm still hacked. Many of you are, too. So let's talk about it.

I'm referring to the ruling last week that threw out the blood-alcohol test in the drunken-driving case against Tarrant County Judge Elizabeth Berry.

Compounding my frustration is that I don't know exactly whom to be mad at.

Berry was stopped for speeding last year in Alvarado, south of Fort Worth. She refused to take a field sobriety test, a breath test or a blood test, so a municipal judge signed a search warrant authorizing a blood test against her wishes.

Last week, after a three-hour hearing, Judge Robert Dohoney ruled that the results of the blood test can't be used against Berry because the arresting officer's supporting affidavit was too vague.

Too vague?

It said Berry was driving 92 miles an hour, appeared confused and unusually quiet, had eight beer bottles on the floorboard of her SUV and the smell of alcohol on her breath.

I'm no legal expert, but let's just apply the parent test. If you caught your kid driving almost 30 mph over the speed limit, acting weird, with beer bottles in the car and smelling of alcohol, who isn't going to think "drunk"?

But that's just common sense. And as we have seen before, courts and common sense often don't mix.

In the Johnson County courtroom last week and in a phone conversation with me this week, defense attorney Mark Daniel really tortured the limits of common sense on what arresting officer Taylor Archibald should have included in his affidavit.

"It just said he observed beer bottles in the floorboard. Daniel said. "Which floorboard? The front or the back? If in back, which side, right or left? Were the bottles empty or full? Were they warm or cold?"

When I mentioned the smell of alcohol as solid information, he attacked that as too vague, too. "Was it strong or minimal? Was it the smell of beer? Or bourbon. Or isopropyl alcohol?"

Daniel bristled at my suggestion that all this amounts to technicalities. "Some people may call it technicalities. Some call it the Constitution," he said. "And I think the Constitution matters."

Then he really landed a low blow, saying maybe I ought to be commiserating with Dick Cheney on what a darn nuisance that Constitution is.

OK, OK. I do fully support our protections afforded by the Constitution. I know specific standards must be met. I accept the painful reality that a few guilty may go free in protecting the rights of us all.

And that's why I say I'm frustrated by not knowing exactly where to direct my anger. It sure looks like Officer Archibald and the Alvarado Police Department have to take some blame here, too.

Common sense may be enough elsewhere. But officers should know what the legal requirements are to support a search warrant.

In last week's hearing, it came out that Officer Archibald's original affidavit did not include the crucial information about alcohol on Berry's breath. That was added only after the municipal judge coached the officer on the need for more specific information before she could sign the warrant.

It will be a real shame if this case falls apart on the basis of sloppy police work. It's already a shame that the case has further eroded respect for our legal system.

A jury may never get to decide Judge Berry's fate, but voters will have the chance next year. And as far as I know, common sense is still permitted there.

If you read Mr. Blow's column you may have the impression that the case against Judge Barry has been thrown out and that she will not be prosecuted for DWI. If you have this impression, you are not alone as I have had several people ask me about this case and specifically why it was being thrown out on a technicality. A belief that this case is being thrown out is completely false. The case against Judge Barry has not been thrown out, only the results of the blood test. However, I don't blame people who read Mr. Blow's column for this mistaken belief, I blame Mr. Blow.

I have two questions for Mr. Blow. First, "Did Mr. Blow really believe the case has been thrown out?" And second, "If Mr. Blow knew the case WOULD NOT be dismissed why did he slant his column to give readers the false impression that the case was over?"

If Mr. Blow really believed the case was going to be thrown out then he should spend a little more time on research before firing off columns. In a metroplex with thousands of attorneys and two law schools, it should not have been hard for Mr. Blow to discover the case is not thrown out, only evidence illegally obtained by an improper search warrant is excluded.

Courts routinely hold pre-trial hearings to determine the admissibility of evidence that is anticipated to be brought up in future trials. In this case, Judge Barry's attorneys challenged the warrant and evidence obtained through its use, for good reason. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits unlawful searches and seizures without due process of law.

The warrant in Judge Barry's case was properly challenged for being vague and because there were allegations that the judge who signed the warrant gave the officer suggestions on what to put in the warrant. I did not attend the pre-trial hearing, but a judge agreed with the defense and ruled the warrant was improper.

Judge Barry will still face a charge for DWI. Just because the warrant and evidence obtained from its use was ruled illegal does not mean that the Tarrant County DA will dismiss the case against Judge Barry.

Instead, the State will proceed to trial against Judge Barry with all other evidence. That evidence includes: 1) driving 30 miles per hour over the speed limit, 2) having numerous beer bottles on the floor board, 3) the odor of alcohol on Judge Barry's breath, (4) videos from the arrest, and 5) Judge Barry's refusal to perform sobriety test which, under state law, the prosecutors may argue that her refusal is a sign of intoxication.

At trial, a jury will determine if this evidence is enough to convict Judge Barry. The jury may also implement Mr. Blow's "Parent Test" if they so choose. If the jury decides Mr. Blow's "Parent Test" is enough to convict Judge Barry, then she will be convicted.

In regard to my second question for Mr. Blow, if he knew that Judge Barry's case was not going to be thrown out, why did he slant his column to leave reader's with the impression that it would? As a defense attorney, I often spend more time during jury selection rehabilitating potential jurors, due to columns like Mr. Blow's, than I do asking relevant questions to determine if they would be fair jurors.

Mr. Blow may not be happy with a "technicality", such as a violation of Judge Barry's constitutional rights that prevented illegally obtained evidence from being admitted. However, he should have focused on why the warrant was illegal and not on attacking the defense attorney. However, that may not have sold papers. Misleading readers to believe a drunk judge was getting away with something does, I guess.

In the end, it doesn't really matter. Mr. Blow has the bully pulpit to publish his column to the masses who read the Dallas Morning News. I am just an attorney with a blog that few people read. I will continue to educate jurors who are tainted by columns like Mr. Blow's. I just hope that the next time one of my clients deserves to be exonerated because his or her constitutional rights were violated, that the jurors don't have the same mentality as Mr. Blow.

Oh, and I also hope that one day my respect for the legal system will be as high as my respect for journalist.

Posted by Troy P. Burleson | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: DWI Enforcement News

Bookmark: