The holiday season is a time where celebrations occur throughout the country and the perfect time for law enforcement agencies to crack down on drunk drivers. Just in time for the holiday season, state traffic safety officials are saying that they are tightening their grip on drunk drivers, even declaring 2010 as "the year of the checkpoint".
Law enforcement officials throughout the state of California have begun rolling out checkpoints in an effort to reduce alcohol related deaths and injuries. Over 400 local agencies, including the California Highway Patrol, have begun taking part in sobriety checkpoints, multi-agency task force operations and saturation patrol to reduce the number of drunk drivers on the road this holiday season.
Although effective Los Angeles sobriety checkpoints have shown to reduce the number of alcohol related deaths and injuries, there are plenty of times where checkpoints and associated stops are not legally managed. In order for a Los Angeles sobriety checkpoint to be constitutional, there must be several factors that must be met, these include; the public must be given notice of the checkpoint, there must be a turnout prior to the checkpoint so that people who do not want to proceed through it have the option to turn around without being pulled over based on their decision, there must be a random, impartial formula for stopping cars, the length and nature of the detention must not be obtrusive, as well as others factors.
A recent article on Los Angeles sobriety checkpoints claims that Sgt. Ken Savano of the Petaluma Police Department said that sobriety checkpoints during the holiday crackdown would not be disclosed to the public. This would be an unconstitutional practice that can be used as a defense strategy against the prosecution at a DUI trial because a sobriety checkpoint must be disclosed to the public to be considered constitutional.
If you have been arrested or charged with a DUI stemming from a Los Angeles sobriety checkpoint, you need an experienced Los Angeles DUI defense team to fight for your constitutional rights in court. The Los Angeles DUI defense team at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin, LLP have over 50 years of courtroom experience and can devise a defense strategy to prove that the DUI checkpoint stop and arrest was unconstitutional. Contact the Los Angeles DUI defense team at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin, LLP at 1-877-781-1570 or visit our site at www.laduidefenseteam.com for more information regarding DUI arrests and checkpoints.
