Posts Tagged ‘DUI’

Twice in the last three months, Philadelphia-area law enforcement officers have been involved in off-duty vehicle accidents that allegedly involve driving under the influence of alcohol.

For law enforcement officers, who absolutely, positively must be accountable to a higher standard than the people they are sworn to protect, that is unacceptable.

Last month, a 23-year-old off-duty Philadelphia Police officer was driving north on I-95 near Girard Avenue when his vehicle crashed into the rear of a state police car while two state troopers were assisting a tow truck driver who was preparing to remove an abandoned car, according to a story in The Philadelphia Inquirer. The two troopers and the two truck driver sustained injuries and the off-duty city officer was being investigated for DUI and was placed on desk duty.

Image credit: © iStockphoto.com/ftwitty

In January, a 47-year-old, Philadelphia-based DUI expert and corporal for the Pennsylvania State Police was charged with drunken driving, careless driving and an open container violation in connection with an accident Dec. 17 when his car struck a guardrail on Route 422, according to a story in the Philadelphia Daily News. He was placed on administrative leave while the incident was being investigated.

We know that police officers are human like the rest of us and that this doesn’t only occur here in Philadelphia, but individual law enforcement agencies across the nation must work harder to stop this problem, and quickly.

It’s bad enough being involved in a vehicle accident. What makes it even worse is if you are hit by a vehicle driven by a drunken police officer, who is supposed to be out there protecting us all – even if they are “off-duty.”

We need to have effective alcohol treatment programs to help law enforcement officers who have drinking problems. And deny it or not, if they are driving drunk, they have drinking problems.

We need to have better mechanisms inside police departments to help officers who are showing signs of such problems. That means counseling programs, rehab programs and other support for officers who are troubled.

Yes, police work is an incredibly stressful, often violent and difficult job, but overconsumption of alcohol and illegal drugs is not the answer.

We need to help officers who are having these kinds of problems and encourage better, more productive coping mechanisms.

Law enforcement officers, as part of their jobs and responsibilities, automatically must live up to this higher standard of behavior because we give them the powers to watch over us if we behave in such irresponsible ways. There is no credibility in the legal system if law enforcement officers can be arrested for drunken driving one day and then arrest any of us and charge us with drunken driving on a different day.

For years, DUI defense attorneys have questioned the reliability of breath test results used as evidence of alcohol intoxication in DUI cases. Criminal defense attorneys across the nation have suggested that the source code used to program alcohol breath test machines have errors that make the machines render unreliable results in certain circumstances.

Reliability of the results is important because in a criminal prosecution, defendants have a right to cross-examine witnesses against them. But for evidence provided from a machine, however, the defendant cannot cross examine the machine, although it provides evidence against the defendant.

The New Jersey Supreme Court has considered the reliability of these machines and analyzed whether the source code—the programming code used to run the breath test machines—accurately programs the machines to provide reliable results. Ultimately, the New Jersey Supreme Court considered the breath test machine used in that state, the Alcotest, manufactured by Draeger, Inc., to be reliable. Courts in Minnesota and Arizona have also considered the source code issue as it relates to the breath test machines used in those states—both use versions of the Intoxilyzer, manufactured by CMI.

In Pennsylvania, law enforcement officers also use a version of the Intoxilyzer in breath tests of drivers they suspect of drunken driving. But Pennsylvania courts have apparently not considered the source code issue yet. Cases in which a court considers the source code for a breath test machine can have far-reaching effects. A finding that the machine renders unreliable results of intoxication because of mistakes in the source code can affect any driver that is currently facing charges of drunken driving based on evidence of a breath test taken on the machine. Future challenges to drunken driving charges in Pennsylvania based on source code could change the way that DUI offenses are investigated and prosecuted in Pennsylvania.