What does Twitter and DUI checkpoints have in common ? Apparently , Twitter is being is being used to warn DUI drivers of the location of DUI checkpoints around the country. USA Today"s Chris Woodyard  reported that police around the country will be setting up DUI sobriety checkpoints or roadblocks in an effort to arrest DUI drivers.The police are complaining that Twitters are posting tweets of the location of the DUI checkpoints.

I have to confess that I thought Twitter was just a novelty even when I signed up.Now , Fresno , Ca. police reports it is a commonplace occurrence that drivers are tweeting so fellow drivers can avoid a DUI roadblock.One police officer admitted that his daughter send him texts of the locations of the checkpoints.

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One of the primary questions I get in my practice is, "can I get my criminal charges expunged?" And once you plead guilty to a criminal offense, you cannot get your criminal record expunged at a later date. This is why it’s important to avoid a conviction in the first place. 

However, under certain situations, you can have your record expunged IF your case was dismissed, retired, or if the District Attorney General moved for a Nolle Prosequi. There are also certain types of plea bargains that you can enter into that may allow you to have your record expunged at a later time.

These pleas are referred to as diverison plea agreements, and there are two types of diversions. 

  1. A pre-trial diversion: This is where a defendant enters into a memorandum of understanding to do certain things during a period of time. One condition is not to be rearrested.
  2. A Judicial diversion: This is when you enter into a plea, in which you enter into a conditional plea of guilt. If you violate the terms and conditions of your probation, the plea goes onto your criminal record. If you’re successful, the conviction will go away after the period of probation.

In Clay Carey’s recent The Tennessean article, Tennessee filings to erase arrest records rise with unemployment, I talk a little bit more about expungement as related to the current job market. 

Recently, I had a case with a person on a low carb diet that was arrested for Driving Under the Influence(DUI). The breath test was high for the amount of alcohol she consumed and I remembered the issue of low carb diets and elevated breath tests results. Low carb diets such as the South Beach diet and Atkins diet can increase the acetone in the body. Why is that important?

The breath test machine may confuse the acetone with alcohol. Therefore, it will give a higher reading on the breath alcohol test. In Attorney Lawrence Taylor’s blog post, Dieting Can Cause High Breathalyzer Results, he wrote about the effects of dieting and increased breath alcohol levels:

Fasting or radical dieting, such as with the Atkins diet, can also cause significantly elevated acetone. Studies have concluded that fasting, for example, can increase acetone in the body sufficient to obtain breathalyzer readings of .06% (this is cumulative — that is, the .06% will be added by the machine to any levels actually caused by alcohol or other compounds, so that a true breath alcohol of .03%, for example, would be reported by the machine as .09%).

The importance of this fact is, diet and other factors can influence breath alcohol testing levels. Do breath test machines detect this? I don’t know. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation doesn’t even have an owner’s manual for the breath test machines that the citizens of the State of Tennessee have paid for.

Brother O'Mara Tennessee BoatingEarlier this year, in Nicole Young’s The Tennessean article,  Alcohol abuse rises on Tennessee waters, she wrote about the rise in boating under the influence cases (BUI) in Tennessee. 

In 2008, there were over 152 arrests for boating under the influence. It’s no surprise to me, considering the number of lakes we have around Nashville, such as Old Hickory Lake, and Percy Priest Lake.

However, there is a major difference in a boating case verses a DUI case.

The main difference is that a wildlife officer has a right to board your boat under Tennessee laws to inspect boats for registration and safety requirements. A wildlife officer does not have to have probable cause to stop your boat. They simply ask for the safety equipment and soon start a criminal investigation. There are no constitutional safeguards in place regarding illegal search and seizures. Why are there less constitutional safeguards on the lake?

One other distinction is that you can get pretrial or judicial diversion on a boating under the influence case. Also, all counties surrounding the lake have concurrent jurisdiction. So, the police can arrest you and you can be tried in Gallatin, Nashville, Lebanon, or any county that touches the lake.

Image: Brother O’Mara