Interview I with Chicago Defense Lawyer Robert Callahan – pg2
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Interviewer: I get the point. Definitely looked at in 2014 as compared to 1999, very different in public perception and the zeal at which prosecutors go at people with DUI charges. I think it’s more of the public perception of prosecuting the crime and where some prosecutor can hang some guy out to dry whether he’s guilty or not.
Robert J. Callahan: Well part of it is concern for public safety and that is certainly a big part of it and there are some victim’s rights advocates out there that are doing great things that are getting laws put on the books that actually get drunk drivers off the road. On the other hand, two different things have happened I feel locally, governmental, and prosecution wise, is that they’ve realized this is a great source of income for both the county and the state. For example, with a DUI in Chicago, if you get pulled over for a DUI or arrested for a DUI, even if you’re later found not guilty or if the case is dismissed, whatever happens with the outcome of the case, you are charged a $2,000 impound fee for your car. So somewhere over the past six or seven years when they started this, they started realizing how much money they were making off of these impounds and they started writing a lot more DUIs just for that. And when you talk to some of the police off the record, they’d never admit this publically, they’ll tell you there is pressure on them to write these DUI type of offenses where they can impound somebody’s car because the city makes $2,000 for each person charged with a DUI just on the car. After that there’s a couple thousand dollars in statutory fines and fees meaning the state wants their bite of the apple also and if found guilty or negotiate out a plea, then you will be on the hook for another couple thousand dollars in mandatory fines, fees, and costs that will for the most part go to the state or the county. They see it as a source of revenue.
Interviewer: We’ve talked a little bit about how the actual law has changed over the years and maybe it’s more aggressive prosecution right now, it’s a real revenue driver which is one of the reasons for that. How can you help people? If a police officer is interacting with me and I’m a suspect in a DUI case, what advice could you give?
Robert J. Callahan: The second point is enforcement has just been stepped up because of public interest and public safety and political pressure to get some of these dangerous drunk drivers off the street. So you’ve seen increased pressure on police and local law enforcement to make more of these arrests and what’s happened is they have pressure on them to make these arrests and they make questionable arrests sometimes. I mean it seems like 20 years ago when I started, you would never really see anyone arrested for DUI who wasn’t totally under the influence and now you have more and more people testifying that they had one or two beers, or in some strange cases nothing to drink, and been arrested for DUI for varying reasons. So there is pressure on the police to make these types of arrests. One of the things that happened a couple of years ago, the Illinois state police keep track of the officers who write DUIs and there’s almost a contest, in fact there is an award given for the most DUIs written in a year, so it kind of turned into this thing were there was a competition among the officers for who could write more DUIs. And obviously if you think about it for a second, that’s going to have an adverse effect. That’s going to make people who were not guilty of DUI get arrested, it’s going to cause bias on the side of the officers, it’s going to cause an adverse interest in the driver by the officer. Just as human beings they’re going to make mistakes. They are going to want to make more DUI arrests, so in the past when something was on the fence where they would have given the benefit of the doubt to the driver, now they just make the arrest and the city and the state, and the local government makes the money off of the DUI, and no one cares. I mean I didn’t really answer your question.
Interviewer: No, I think that’s an awesome answer. I think it does lead how officers interact with DUI suspects and what to expect if you are ever pulled over for a DUI, can you give us some tips on what to actually do? Is there a five rule list you can give me quickly that is easy to remember?
Robert J. Callahan: Absolutely, I mean there’s a lot of misconceptions about this. Illinois, statewide and I can’t speak for other states because the law varies in other states, in Illinois, you have an absolute right to refuse to do what are called “standardized field sobriety” tests and blow into a Breathalyzer. You have an absolute right to refuse both of those things. Now this is what happens when a person gets pulled over by a police officer. If they suspect that you are under the influence of alcohol or that you have had any alcohol consumption whatsoever, they’re going to ask you to get out of your car. At which point they will start to administer what are called “standardized field sobriety” tests. One of the first ones they do is they hold a pen in front of your eyes and check if there’s what’s called Nystagmus in your pupil. Now nystagmus is a shaking of the pupil that happens at a 45 degree angle when someone is intoxicated. So the first one they will do is this nystagmus test with a pen. You don’t even want to go anywhere near that test. Just respectfully refuse any of the tests they offer. They will ask you to do a one legged stand test, where you have to hold one of your legs in the air for 30 seconds. They will also ask you to do a walk and turn test. These have been standardized by the federal government. The National Highway and Safety Administration has designed these standardized tests that have been tested and examined themselves for their reliability in regard to predicting intoxication by alcohol. Standardized means that the procedure the officers have to follow is uniform, meaning it’s the same thing every time. These are good predictors for intoxication. Now it’s not even close to a 100% predictor of intoxication, because if you just think about it common sense wise, with the walk and turn test, if someone has some sort of disability or ailment, or they have some other type of problem with their legs or foot or knee or hip, they could be 100% sober and they’re not going to be able to perform appropriately and their walk and turn test will indicate intoxication. Same thing with the one legged stand, if you have some type of disability or some type of injury, or if you’ve had some sort of over the counter legal medication, it’s going to effect the one legged stand test. And the one I mentioned first, nystagmus, is probably the most flawed sobriety test of all because there are about 100 other things that cause nystagmus of the pupil besides alcohol and drug intoxication. A good number of over the counter medications cause it, types of employment people do, extreme tiredness causes it, there’s so many of these things that cause nystagmus on its own that it was actually, until recently, inadmissible in a court of law because it was so problematic. They changed the law and allowed it back in, but it just gives you an example, officers will do these standardized field sobriety test and people will fail them for other reasons besides intoxication and they end up failing the DUI and that’s where I come in. That’s where a good criminal defense attorney can come in and help you.
Interview with Chicago Defense Lawyer Robert Callahan - continued (page 3)