DUI and I was sober??? wth??

[GoIllini]

It was 3 AM. You could have also been having trouble driving and what else because you were tired. There's no tests to support you had a certain level of medication in your blood and that was causing the impairment.

Q: for CDW Java: Agree with you about driving impaired with a .00 BAC, but if I am driving impaired due to sleep deprivation and I drink 2 mL of beer, does that make me DUI? Or does it just make me a tired driver who drank a chemical that had an infinitessimal affect on his driving ability?

You can be impaired for having legal drugs in your system, but I have a feeling this is a situation that's going to be harder for a prosecutor to prove than a .12 or even a .06 BAC test at 10PM.

I dunno. I've taken medications in the past and driven, and I wouldn't be that great of a driver at 3 AM with or without them. And a lot of folks I've spoken to in IL think the drunk driving laws are starting to go too far. Maybe a good defense is to ask who wouldn't be a bad driver at 3 AM and ask defendant if she's ever been impaired on the same medications during the day? Especially if you've got an older jury that might be taking prescription meds themselves.

So unless there's some really bad evidence here or they get a bunch of experts to say that her urine test showed she'd have enough medication in her system to be impaired, wouldn't the defense just be that anybody who's ever taken a Benadryl or a Sudafed or a Tylenol and has been pulled over for bad driving (maybe because they were instead worrying about something at work or just very very tired) is guilty of a DUI too? A lot of my friends back in Chicago think the IL DUI laws have gone too far and I'm wondering i folks on the jury could be saying to themselves, "Uhoh. No drinking, just a few medications in her system when she was driving at 3AM. Ya know, that could've been me."

Agree with everyone else that OP can be convicted of this, but I've got a lot of doubts about whether a jury is going to let that happen. No per-se laws telling them they MUST convict, no throwing up or having trouble standing; I'm not sure this is going to be an obvious choice for a jury and when you throw reasonable doubt into the mix where the officer is testifying the OP's pupils were dialated- which could have been for any number of reasons- on a cold night at 3AM, this doesn't seem like the obvious conviction that 99% of DUI cases are.

Time to find a real good lawyer and maybe an expert witness or two. I don't think this is either an obvious conviction or an obvious dismissal.

 

[gurl33]

it just happened a couple days ago, and since I had a boot on and could not do a field sobriety test then he carted me off in handcuffs. When I was in the car he made me follow the light which I did. He said my pupils were dilated, which they are right now and I haven't even taken any pain meds today. I am certain my piss test will come back positive for opiates and the lyrica b/c I had taken them that day. I did get a lawyer...he also never told me I was arrested, just put cuffs on me and took me in. He saw a half a pill in my bottle and asked why I had half a pill in there..I said well sometimes I take half a pill.

The bottle of lyrica says may cause drowsiness, may cause dizziness use care when operating machinery. Alcohol may intensify these effects

Bottle of percocets and norco says the same thing and also about taking more than recommended amount could cause breathing problems.

 

[justalayman]

So, you trust your lawyer and if the cop cannot substantiate the elements required to be found guilty, you should walk. (well, at least figuratively)

 

[gurl33]

and yes I was tired, very tired.

 

[GoIllini]

it just happened a couple days ago, and since I had a boot on and could not do a field sobriety test then he carted me off in handcuffs. When I was in the car he made me follow the light which I did. He said my pupils were dilated, which they are right now and I haven't even taken any pain meds today. I am certain my piss test will come back positive for opiates and the lyrica b/c I had taken them that day. I did get a lawyer...he also never told me I was arrested, just put cuffs on me and took me in. He saw a half a pill in my bottle and asked why I had half a pill in there..I said well sometimes I take half a pill.

The bottle of lyrica says may cause drowsiness, may cause dizziness use care when operating machinery. Alcohol may intensify these effects

Bottle of percocets and norco says the same thing and also about taking more than recommended amount could cause breathing problems.

Hmmm. Sounds like you might need an expert witness if you can afford one. I'm not sure what you mean by dilated and the officer means by dilated, but if you can show that what the officer saw is what your eyes normally look like during the day without medication (maybe because your foot hurts all the time), that could turn out to be a huge hole in the prosecution's case. Maybe someone could take a picture of you with dilated pupils, administer another urine test, and show that you look the same with or without medication. (BTW, this might be something you might want to see a doctor about.)

I think this could be important here. Maybe have a conversation with your doctor about these dilated pupils and if he agrees with you, have a conversation with your lawyer. If he's not hearing you out, you might want to think about getting a second legal opinion just to be sure. I'm not a lawyer, but when it comes to a jury full of ordinary people, showing that you looked exactly the same to the officer as you look during the day without meds could be huge.

Without the dilated pupils, is there any evidence that the medication was causing any sort of impairment whatsoever?

 

[justalayman]

dilated pupils are not an impairment. They are a symptom that would allow one to believe there there was reason to investigate further. The officer will still have to support his claim she was impaired but not merely impaired but incapable of safely driving (as the statute requires)

 

[gurl33]

i got pissy with him, like real pissy and I let my temper get the best of me. I didn't threaten him or anything but I was smart and told him he needed to be bothering someone who was actually breaking the law. He asked me for my ID and insurance card 4 times and I said to him that yeah I understood him the 1st time. I was a b@#$! but I was cooperative.

 

[GoIllini]

dilated pupils are not an impairment. They are a symptom that would allow one to believe there there was reason to investigate further. The officer will still have to support his claim she was impaired but not merely impaired but incapable of safely driving (as the statute requires)

I have a couple of questions here. Let's say you're a horrible driver anyways and you take some Sudafed. The Sudafed impairs your driving infinitessimally, but nowhere near as much as even a single beer would. Are you guilty of driving impaired?

Basically, does the prosecutor just have to prove that you had chemicals in your system AND that you were a bad driver at the same time, or does he have to prove that you were a bad driver BECAUSE you had drugs in your system and that there was a material level of impairment?

 

[GoIllini]

i got pissy with him, like real pissy and I let my temper get the best of me. I didn't threaten him or anything but I was smart and told him he needed to be bothering someone who was actually breaking the law. He asked me for my ID and insurance card 4 times and I said to him that yeah I understood him the 1st time. I was a b@#$! but I was cooperative.

So it sounds like you were maybe preoccupied with something else. Maybe something at work was really bothering you or you were really annoyed about having to be out on the road at 3AM. Emotions are not a chemical impairment and a reason for DUI, so far as I know.

Maybe it's time to think about why you were on the road at 3AM and why you were so angry. Was something from work bothering you? Maybe that is why you had so much trouble rummaging through your stuff trying to find your DL.

 

[justalayman]

i got pissy with him, like real pissy and I let my temper get the best of me. I didn't threaten him or anything but I was smart and told him he needed to be bothering someone who was actually breaking the law. He asked me for my ID and insurance card 4 times and I said to him that yeah I understood him the 1st time. I was a b@#$! but I was cooperative.

well, being that b can play against you. People under the influence of drugs or alcohol often become belligerent. If the officer claims you were acting impaired in a manner indicative of being impaired, it will hurt you.

 

[GoIllini]

well, being that b can play against you. People under the influence of drugs or alcohol often become belligerent. If the officer claims you were acting impaired in a manner indicative of being impaired, it will hurt you.

But any person having a bad day could behave just the same. Say your boss yells at you like crazy. That turns into bad driving, turns into making a snarky comment to the police officer when you get pulled over. It doesn't mean the Sudafed you took because of your cold made you drunk. I think the big concern here is the dilated pupils, and if there's a good explanation for that and the bad driving/snarky comment to the police officer, there's a reasonable chance a jury will reject the notion that she was driving drunk beyond all reasonable doubt.

 

[justalayman]

GoIllini;2735569]I have a couple of questions here. Let's say you're a horrible driver anyways and you take some Sudafed. The Sudafed impairs your driving infinitessimally, but nowhere near as much as even a single beer would. Are you guilty of driving impaired?

yes but again, the element in this statute is the inability to safely operate the vehicle. One can be impaired and still be able to safely operate your vehicle.

In fact, in this case, the OP admits to being impaired by having a cast or whatever on her foot. Yes, that is an impairment and in some cases, similar impairments could cause you to not be able to safely operate a vehicle. It wouldn't pass muster under this statute we are dealing with because this statute deals with impairment due to alcohol or drugs.

Basically, does the prosecutor just have to prove that you had chemicals in your system AND that you were a bad driver at the same time, or does he have to prove that you were a bad driver BECAUSE you had drugs in your system and that there was a material level of impairment?

It will be a moot point. If you cannot operate your vehicle safely and you had drugs present, it can be inferred it was due to the presence of the drugs.

If not, then you have no legal right to ever be on the road because you obviously can never operate a vehicle safely. It is presumed that since you obtained a license, at some time you were capable of operating a vehicle safely.

 

[justalayman]

But any person having a bad day could behave just the same. Say your boss yells at you like crazy. That turns into bad driving, turns into making a snarky comment to the police officer when you get pulled over. It doesn't mean the Sudafed you took because of your cold made you drunk. I think the big concern here is the dilated pupils, and if there's a good explanation for that and the bad driving/snarky comment to the police officer, there's a reasonable chance a jury will reject the notion that she was driving drunk beyond all reasonable doubt.

again, it in itself is not proof of the inability to be able to operate a vehicle safely. It is like the dilated pupils; it allows one to have suspicion and investigate further. Enough of this type of nail though and they will be enough to prove the unsafe operation issue.

btw: dilated pupils all by themselves can be enough impairment to prevent the safe operation of a vehicle. Ever have an ophthalmologist dilate your eyes?

 

[gurl33]

I was aggravated by getting pulled over, a little aggravated that my boyfriend had been calling and questioning where I was, and very aggravated that I had been DD for my cousins 35th bday, had just dropped all of them off and I was the one who was getting in trouble. I didn't anything to drink all night.

The cop told me on the way to the jail that I seemed like a nice girl and that it seemed to him i had got caught up and did something (like take a bunch of pills or snort cocaine) that I didn't normally do.

 

[GoIllini]

It will be a moot point. If you cannot operate your vehicle safely and you had drugs present, it can be inferred it was due to the presence of the drugs.

The logic here doesn't add up. Millions of people take ritalin and some of them are bad drivers. Should we test everyone who gets pulled over for bad driving to see if they have ritalin in their system and give them a DUI if that is the case even though ritalin doesn't have a material impact on their driving?

Maybe we should blame bad driving on food, which has a chemical makeup. If you've eaten tacos in the past 48 hours and you're driving badly, maybe we should presume that food was the culprit and give you a DUI. Or maybe we can blame it on pollution. We can do a blood test, and if there are elevated levels of CO in your blood from driving on the highway, perhaps we should presume that your impairment was caused by those chemicals and give you a DUI.

The real question here isn't whether you have medication in your system- it's whether that medication has a materially adverse impact on your driving.

If not, then you have no legal right to ever be on the road because you obviously can never operate a vehicle safely. It is presumed that since you obtained a license, at some time you were capable of operating a vehicle safely.

Yes, but lots of people get older and have trouble with their reaction times and sometimes people who are emotional or having a bad day can't drive safely and it has nothing to do with chemicals in their system. Evidence that the driver has safely operated vehicles while medicated in the past would go a long way to showing he/she wasn't drunk, especially given that there's no per-se rule for legal drugs AFAIK.

If the OP were filthy rich, she could probably even hire a team of drunk driving experts to take her on a closed course and show the medication doesn't cause material impairment.

In any case, given that everything besides the dilated pupils can be explained by her having a bad day, she has dilated pupils without medication, that there's a good chance at least a few people on the jury think IL's have gone waaay too far and some others have taken medication and driven in the past, and that she's entitled to the benefit of the doubt, how do you think the jury's going to swing? Yes, they could swing either way, but if you had to take a guess, which way would you suspect if she had a good lawyer who could make her case?

The police officer was right to suspect she might be DUI given the dilated pupils. That's not to say she's clearly guilty, especially when there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything.

I think a good lawyer and an expert witness or two- if OP has the money- could make a huge difference here. I think one or two people on the jury will quietly want to acquit just because they think IL has gone too far on drunk driving laws, and a couple more that will quietly want to acquit because of the circumstances (legally prescribed medications taken as directed). Throw in reasonable doubt, a couple of expert witnesses saying that the drugs couldn't have materially impaired her, and you've got a lot of ammunition to throw at anyone who wants to convict.

The cop told me on the way to the jail that I seemed like a nice girl and that it seemed to him i had got caught up and did something (like take a bunch of pills or snort cocaine) that I didn't normally do.

Well, they have a urine sample, and in this case, the results could be really helpful. Depending on what comes out, the prosecutor might even drop the charges (but don't get your hopes up.) The fact that the officer thought you were probably on some sort of illegal drug but that won't show up in the urine test could bode a little bit better for them dropping the charges, but I'm not sure how good those odds are. Bottom line is that you can be convicted for DUI on prescription meds. Will any Illinois jury convict you? That's a much harder question to answer and it's partially going to depend on how much effort you're willing to put into fighting the charge.