Alcohol and vehicular troubles are nothing new to collegiate athletes, unfortunately. So this story can be added to the others covered here. Notre Dame's Wide Receiver Michael Floyd was reportedly sentenced to a year of probation and cannot drive for 90 days following his guilty plea to a misdemeanor drunk driving charge. Once Floyd's license is reinstated he will have a device in his car for 180 days that will monitor Floyd's blood-alcohol level and will prevent the car from starting if his blood-alcohol level is too high. Floyd was arrested for driving while intoxicated in March in South Bend, Indiana. At the time of his arrest, his blood-alcohol level was 0.19%, which is more then double the legal limit. Any attorney in this position would likely be patting himself on the back. He seems to have some trouble maintaining the separation of driving and drinking, so perhaps his sentence is fitting and will help him focus on his talents.
In Indiana drunk driving is considered a misdemeanor crime. Had Floyd been arrested in New Jersey he would have instead committed a Title 39 motor vehicle violation rather than a crime. The minimum penalty in New Jersey for a DUI is 7 months loss of drivers license. Since his blood-alcohol level was as high as a 0.19% (New Jersey considers over a 0.08% blood alcohol level to be driving under the influence) he would be required to have a mandatory interlock device. This device of course would prevent the car from starting if his blood-alcohol level is too high. He would be stuck with the interlock device for six months after his license was restored.
There are many permutations of penalties and sentences you may receive depending upon the number of infractions you have on your record. It helps to have an experienced attorney on your side. If you have been charged with a DUI you should seek help from a licensed attorney immediately.

If you are driving in New Jersey and a police officer pulls you over on suspicion of DUI/DWI, when asked to do a breathalyzer test, and you refuse, you have just broken a law. By possessing a driver's license, you have given consent to being administered these tests, through a concept known as "implied consent." For the privilege of being legally entitled to drive, you have legally committed to perform that act upon request. As such, breaking that promise or a refusal to submit to the test is illegal. Even if you are not convicted of DWI from that arrest, you are still guilty of that crime and your license is suspended for up to 10 years (20 years if the arrest occurs in a school zone and it is your third DWI!).

You may be convicted of "refusal" in particular, but until just this past week, such a refusal conviction would constitute a prior DWI conviction if you were subsequently pulled over for another DWI! The difference between a first offense and a second offense in refusals and DWIs is tremendous: 1 year 7 months to 1 year of suspended driving privileges and thousands of dollars.
The first point would be, obviously, don't drink and drive. The second would be to remember that submitting to the test, as you have promised to do by possessing a driver's license, does not necessarily mean you will be convicted of a DWI, but refusing to take the test will get you convicted of that crime, which carries its own fines and penalties.

The third, though probably most important if you dismiss the first, is that you should contact an attorney immediately so that you don't get caught in a web of complicated laws. DWI/DUI and refusal convictions come with fines, community service, jail time, car ignition interlock devices, IDRC (Intoxicated Driver Resource Center) classes, severe inconvenience, and have a way of following you for the rest of your life. Get yourself a skilled, experienced attorney immediately.

Side note #1: People with commercial driver's licenses have an entirely separate set of penalties that affect their license, even if they were stopped or charged while driving their personal car! For example, they lose their commercial drivers license for a minimum of one year.
Side note #2: If you have a DWI conviction, you cannot travel to Canada without permission from the Canadian Embassy! Canada considers a DWI a crime, and they will turn you away at the border without that express permission.

Texting and driving is a danger with any moving vehicle, as a Boston subway driver proved by crashing his trolley into another trolley. Many of the 60 injured passengers were also likely texting at the time, going by the technology's popularity, but they were not in the drivers seat. The driver plead guilty to criminal gross negligence by a person in control of a common carrier, meaning he was providing a service transporting a group of individuals. His girlfriend must feel a creepy kind of special to have cause the Defendant to run through yellow and red warning lights, endangering his passengers and shirking his crucial job responsibility.

His lawyer certainly did his job with this case. Prosecutors argued that because he felt like reaching out to his girlfriend, the defendant caused 65 people injuries ranging from bruises to broken bones, risking their lives, and incurred $10 million in damage. In defense, Mr. Quinn's attorney argued that this was a one-time thing, that he is ordinarily cautious, and that he has suffered already by losing his job, and becoming extremely unpopular locally and in the media. Tax dollars should not be spent to protect the public from this remorseful, good person he argued.

Mr. Quinn is an extremely fortunate individual. Due to his attorney's efforts, he will avoid time in jail despite carrying with him in the future a criminal record. This case illustrates how someone can be found guilty of a crime and have the State (or Commonwealth in this case) seek jail time, yet still avoid prison. It is because the sentencing judge has the ultimate discretion. Here, the Judge sentenced Mr. Quinn to probation, which means he will have to comply with Probation's requirements, but he will not serve any prison time. In New Jersey, a fourth or third degree criminal offense usually carries with it the presumption that guilty party be given probation rather jail time.

The procedural technicalities, as well as the importance of oral argument, in this case demonstrate how crucial it is to have the best defense attorney possible, no matter how serious or trivial the criminal charges. The right defense attorney can make a huge impact on your life.

The suicide of a Rutgers freshman, Mr. Tyler Clementi, is a tragic event, to say the least. The two students who broadcast his homosexual sexual encounter over the Internet using a hidden webcam, Dhuran Ravi and Molly Wei, now face charges for invasion of privacy. It is alleged that they filmed an intimate encounter of Clementi's with a webcam, posted a twitter message about the recording, and shared the video on iChat. The problem here is that the Middlesex County Prosecutor isn't able to charge them with more serious crimes. The consequences of their actions certainly seem to warrant more. The students were charged with 3rd degree invasion, which carries a potential five years in prison. However, there is a presumption of a non-custodial sentence for 4th and 3rd degree crimes. This means that Ravi and Wei would be looking at probation or even potential enrollment in a pretrial intervention program.

It is clear that the students' actions were driven by anti-gay bias. It may be argued that they might have had the same poor judgment had the victim been heterosexual. The only thing working against the students is the media coverage of the case. If the students were to end up in jail it would only be because of the media coverage's focus on the anti-gay motivation, and would not be consistent with what the average 3rd degree invasion criminal would receive. A defense attorney with experience dealing with intense media coverage would have to confront this risk head on.

Braylon Edwards, it was reported recently, upon being pulled over in the early morning hours for having overly tinted windows, was charged with drinking and driving. In response, he first suggested that perhaps he might just leave the car and head on home (really?), then questioned the legality of police procedure which stopped him for the windows only to discover that he had been drinking, without performing a field sobriety test.

Putting Edwards' off the cuff analysis aside, there are two issues here regarding his legal situation. Firstly, he is on probation in Ohio connected to aggravated disorderly conduct charges. It is unknown whether his Ohio probation will be affected by a DUI arrest in New York. In New Jersey, for example, the DUI charge is under Title 39, which governs motor vehicles. It is not a violation of the criminal code unless there is an injury. Thus, it would be doubtful that it could be a legal setback his most recent charges occurred in New Jersey. DUI is a serious offense, however, and has been treated with appropriate gravity by the Courts in recent years, so it is possible that Edward's actions could have some impact on his probation where discretion is permitted.

Secondly, the overly tinted windows caused the police to stop Edwards. The police cannot arbitrarily pull over drivers, however if a car has very tinted windows, which are illegal, they can lead to a police stop, and the noticeable odor of alcohol provides the police officer probable cause to inquire about the driver's level of intoxication, and subsequently, to request that a driver step out of the vehicle.

If you are trying to stay out of trouble, drive a vehicle that will stay under the radar, and attract no attention. Perhaps professional athletes are not familiar with this approach to life. According to reports, should he receive up to a year in prison, he may find it harder to go unnoticed among fellow inmates. Further, spontaneous legal analysis of police behavior is ill-advised, and best left to the skilled attorney that you should immediately consult should you find yourself in any similar situation.

Whether it is New Jersey or California, a Municipal Court judge may order a person to serve jail time. In New Jersey, the longest a person can be sentenced to serve in jail is 180 days in Municipal Court. Naturally, jail time is not common for municipal offenses, outside of a mandatory sentence for a third DUI offense. The key word in all of this is "may," because the law does give a judge the authority to order jail time for things such as disorderly persons offenses. The statute puts a cap on the amount of time, but as anyone would imagine, most people do have an aversion to any prison time.

Lindsay Lohan makes the news by being sentenced to 90 days jail time because, despite her exquisite display of tears and remorse, she has blatantly disregarded the prior court orders. She has missed court dates and failed to comply with terms of her probation, and further, she has erred more than once. Lets hope the jail time is a wake up call to Ms. Lohan, even if she is released after serving a fraction of her jail sentence. If the wake-up call hits, perhaps her mandatory in-house substance abuse rehabilitation following jail might have a shot at being effective.