When your driver’s license is suspended, you may be reissued a license after the suspension period.
When your driver’s license is revoked, my may be required to get retested before a new license can be reissued.
Call An Experienced Seattle DUI Lawyer Now At 206-706-2831 for a Free No Hassle Consultation About Your Seattle DUI Case.
www.SeattleDUIFirm.com
Congratulations are due to fellow defense attorney Andy Robertson on a hard-fought case ending with a great result in Whatcom County Superior Court.
Here is the article from the Bellingham Herald explaining:
Jury deadlocks on whether man stole Bellingham police car
PETER JENSEN – THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
A Whatcom County Superior Court jury could not unanimously decide Thursday, Jan. 28, if a Bremerton man charged with stealing a Bellingham police patrol car in November 2008 was guilty of the crime.
Joshua R. Willette, 26, was charged with theft of a motor vehicle and first-degree malicious mischief.
After a four-day trial in Judge Ira Uhrig’s courtroom concluded Wednesday morning, the jury deliberated for the afternoon and into Thursday morning before deadlocking on the theft charge.
The jury found Willette not guilty of the malicious mischief charge.
Willette’s attorney, Andrea Robertson, said the 12-member jury was evenly split on whether he was guilty of the car-theft charge.
She said Senior Deputy Prosecutor Eric Richey has not made a decision on whether to re-try Willette on that charge.
“It’s hard to predict since it was split exactly down the middle,” Robertson said. “They expressed a lot of concerns about the investigation.”
Robertson said Willette was relieved but still anxious upon hearing the jury’s results.
“He cried when it was read,” Robertson said. “He had relief that part of it was over and anxiety about what happens next. It’s been a long, stressful process.”
Richey told the jury during trial that a shoeprint, a cigarette butt and DNA evidence tied Willette to the car theft.
Robertson countered that the shoeprint and cigarette butts were from common brands and called an expert witness to criticize the police department’s handling of the DNA evidence, which he said could lead to cross-contamination and a faulty test result.
Willette was drinking downtown at Bob’s Burgers & Brew on the night of Nov. 30, 2008, when Officer Matthew Allen parked his patrol car in the alley next to the Royal Inn and left the keys in the ignition. When he returned, the car was gone.
An officer later found the car damaged with a flat tire, two microphones stolen from it and on some rocks at the dead end of C Street near Bellingham Bay.
He found a cigarette butt that appeared recently smoked, and impounded that as evidence, according to trial testimony.
Another officer found Willette walking alone at C and Girard streets, and stopped to question him after Willette jumped into a bush as the patrol car passed.
Robertson said Willette walked into the bush because he was intoxicated.
When questioned, Willette had a pack of cigarettes on him that was the same brand as the butt found by the car, and the officer checked the soles of his shoes and later found a match in the mud about 30 feet from the stolen police car.
Robertson said the shoe is from a common brand and a similar shoeprint is now evidence against a defendant charged in a series of rooftop burglaries that was occurring when the police car was stolen.
After Willette was charged, the cigarette butt and a mouth swab containing his DNA were sent to a Washington State Patrol Crime Lab in Marysville for a comparison.
Although the lab found a match, Robertson called Donald Riley, a University of Washington professor and a DNA research scientist who observed the testing process, to cast doubts on the test result.
Riley said the swab and cigarette butt were placed in paper containers and put into a box for shipping to the lab, which he said could lead to cross-contamination because paper is porous enough to allow human cells to get through.
Richey countered that the evidence was placed in two layers of paper, and Riley admitted the DNA analyst did nothing to compromise the test results.
According to officials, there were no DUI related traffic fatalities over the New Year’s weekend.
Last year on New Year’s weekend there were five alcohol-related deaths in the state. Over the New Year’s weekend police officials made 257 DUI arrests. This is a decrease from last year’s 291 DUI arrests over the weekend. Officials are attributing the decrease to people taking taxis and assigning designated drivers.
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Call An Experienced Seattle DUI Lawyer Now At 206-706-2831 for a Free No Hassle Consultation About Your Seattle DUI Case.
Former Chicago Blackhawks star Chris Chelios was arrested early Dec. 28 and charged with speeding and driving under the influence, Westmont police said.
According to police, Chelios, now playing for the Chicago Wolves, was driving alone in a pickup truck east on Ogden Avenue in the area of Blackhawk Drive in Westmont when he was stopped.
Chelios was then taken to the Westmont police department, where he was charged and later released on bond. He has a Feb. 1 court date, according to reports.
On December 13, 2009, my attention was drawn to an internet “article” published on a website called BestInformationAbout.com. While the article, “Should I get a Public Defender or Hire a Seattle DUI Attorney,” was not written by me and makes no mention of my name or that of my firm, Lovik & Juhl, PLLC, it is embedded with two links to a website that I maintain. The article is poorly written, misstates the law, and—most notably—it is terribly offensive to the public defense community at large.
After looking into the matter, my suspicion that the article was published by a search engine optimization (SEO) company was confirmed. While I did contract for services with the SEO in question, I in no way authorized the publication of the article, nor would I have if given the opportunity. On December 15, 2009, I formally severed all ties with the SEO company responsible for writing and publishing the article.
Unfortunately, as many who have gone before me have learned, once content is published on the internet, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to remove.
A motorized bar stool that got an Ohio man arrested for drunken driving goes up for auction this week on eBay.
Twenty-nine-year-old Kile Wygle was charged with driving under the influence after he crashed the contraption in March in the central Ohio city of Newark. He pleaded guilty the following month and spent three days in jail.
A Licking County judge ruled in June that any profit from sale of the stool should go toward back child support. At the time, Wygle owed about $37,000.
The DUI lawyers at Lovik & Juhl, PLLC are dedicated to helping people facing DUI charges throughout King County, including all King County District Courts and Municipal Courts in Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond, Kent, and all surrounding communities.
By The Associated Press
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — A Klamath Falls woman who allegedly bought 180 cans of beer for an underage drinking party is charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of an 18-year-old who attended.
Klamath County District Attorney Ed Caleb says 33-year-old Roberta Jean Tamcke was jailed Monday after a grand jury indicted her. The Klamath Falls Herald and News said she turned herself in.
Police records show that 18-year-old Emilio Alfaro died Feb. 28 after the vehicle he was driving flipped and struck a telephone pole shortly after he left the party. His blood alcohol content was over the legal limit.
He was a 2008 Henley High School graduate who competed at the state level in wrestling last year.
By CURT WOODWARD
The Associated Press
OLYMPIA — Gov. Christine Gregoire suffered her first major defeat of the 2008 Legislature on Thursday when her push for drunken-driving checkpoints died without enough support from lawmakers.
Gregoire’s proposal would have let police stop all motorists on certain stretches of road to check for drunken drivers, after getting a local judge’s approval. Gregoire said that could save about 50 lives a year, based on successes in nearly 40 other states that have similar programs.
Gregoire, who is running for a second term this fall against Republican Dino Rossi, heavily promoted the checkpoint plan at the Capitol, lobbying for it in her State of the State speech and sending high-powered supporters to its public hearing.
But the plan encountered strong, bipartisan resistance in the Legislature. Critics said the Washington constitution’s privacy protections, which are stronger than those in federal law, prohibit police searches without a greater degree of suspicion.
It never came up for a vote, even though House Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Pat Lantz, D-Gig Harbor, was its chief sponsor. On Thursday, Lantz and the Gregoire administration declared the plan dead.
Lantz described resistance among other lawmakers as “immense,” and questioned whether the Legislature’s rhetoric about ending drunken-driving deaths was entirely genuine.
“Everyone’s interest in stopping the carnage on our highways is not as deeply rooted as I thought,” a disappointed Lantz said.
Marty Brown, Gregoire’s legislative chief, said the Democratic governor remains committed to the program and will bring it back to lawmakers if re-elected in November. Lantz, however, was less optimistic.
“I think it will be many a year before anybody tries this again,” she said.
Skeptics like Rep. Mark Ericks, D-Bothell, said they never got a good explanation about how the checkpoint plan could survive a legal test under the state constitution’s privacy protections.
“I can’t imagine how it could possibly meet constitutional muster, because our state is a little more strict,” said Ericks, a former police chief.
Rep. Steve Kirby, D-Tacoma, said he heard loud and clear from constituents that the police roadblocks weren’t a good idea. He agreed.
“To me, this is a step away from letting the police stop us on the streets and search our pockets and our backpacks,” Kirby said.
By Yu Nakayama
Seattle Times Olympia bureau
OLYMPIA — Sen. Mike Carrell wants everyone on the road to know who’s been caught driving drunk.
He’s sponsoring a bill that would require people convicted of drunken driving to put fluorescent-yellow license plates on their cars for one year — once their driving privileges have been restored.
“I’ve talked to the law-enforcement agencies and they think it would be an awfully good idea to have a way of visibly telling sheep from goats out on the road,” said Carrell, R-Lakewood.
It also could help law-abiding drivers as a signal to give a wider berth to anyone behind the wheel of a car with bright-yellow plates, Carrell said.
But not everyone agrees that such a public designation is the best way to go after drunken drivers.
“The first thing it reminded me of was reading ‘The Scarlet Letter’ in high school,” said Sen. Brian Weinstein, D-Mercer Island, referring to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel in which the heroine must wear the letter “A” on her chest as punishment for adultery.
“Obviously I am opposed to drunken drivers. I think everyone is,” Weinstein said. “But I don’t think this is going to solve anything, and it will have the unintended consequence of embarrassing a lot of innocent people.”
The bill, Senate Bill 6402, was approved last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee and now is before the Transportation Committee.
DUI offenders would be charged $10 per plate for cars. Motorcycles and mopeds would require just one plate, at a cost of $2.
Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota and Oregon have similar requirements for DUI offenders.
In Ohio, people convicted of drunken driving are issued yellow plates with crimson numbers. In Iowa, their plates contain the letter “Z.” Offenders in Minnesota are issued plates that bear a unique series of numbers, and in Oregon, convicted drunken drivers display a special sticker on their license plates.
Weinstein said the rule would be unfair: What if a man committed a drunken-driving offense, but he and his wife have only one car?
“Why should she be embarrassed and have the public view her as a criminal when she’s completely innocent?” Weinstein asked.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving “is not into shunning” convicted drunken drivers and doesn’t support the license-plate idea, said Katherine Kovacich, regional administrator for MADD in the Pacific Northwest.
Instead, Kovacich said MADD favors legislation that would allow sobriety checkpoints and use of interlock devices that prevent a drunken driver from starting a car. Washington state already requires ignition-interlock devices. A proposal by Gov. Christine Gregoire to let police set up sobriety checkpoints under certain conditions appears to have died in the Legislature after failing to attract enough support.
“These vanity plates have no scientific data to support them that links their use to a reduction in DWI offenses,” Kovacich said.
Carrell said he recognizes that innocent drivers wouldn’t want to use a car with the yellow plates, but he hopes that possibility would make people think twice before drinking and driving.
“I think it would be a very large deterrent,” he said.
But even if the bill doesn’t act as a deterrent, it’s still important to mark DUI offenders, Carrell said.
“If you have somebody who has [a] history of driving under the influence, I think it’s of great value to the general public and law enforcement to spot such people,” he said. “Otherwise you’re looking for a needle in the haystack.”
By The Associated Press
OREGON CITY, Ore. — When they got Meagan Harper to the hospital, her blood alcohol level was .55 percent — about seven times greater than Oregon’s legal limit for driving.
“You just don’t see numbers that high,” said Dr. Mohamud Daya, an Oregon Health & Science University associate professor and emergency room physician.
At that level, some people are so drunk they stop breathing, he said.
Harper has drunken driving convictions in Washington and Multnomah counties and was convicted in Wasco County of operating a boat while intoxicated, said Ryan Chiotti, deputy district attorney in Clackamas County. He said she is on probation for driving under the influence and is awaiting trial on another drunken driving charge next month.
A Clackamas deputy found her passed out in a car at a pizza restaurant on Nov. 28.
She appeared in court Wednesday. Chiotti urged she be jailed, under high bail, as “an extraordinary danger to the community.”
Judge Patrick Gilroy set her bail at $50,000 and told her to get help, “or you’ll end up dead or taking someone with you.”