SAN ANTONIO — A special prosecutor said insufficient evidence prompted him to seek dismissal of a drunken driving charge against a state district judge.

Tony Hackebeil wouldn't elaborate on why he asked County Court-at-Law Judge Michael Mery to dismiss the charge stemming from a February traffic stop involving Raymond Angelini, a longtime judge. Hackebeil's motion was granted Thursday.

Angelini, 57, who has maintained his innocence all along, said some will see the dismissal as a reflection of his position.

"I had nothing to do with what (Hackebeil's) decision was," Angelini said. "I didn't talk to him."

Andrew Del Cueto, who represents Angelini, said his report to the prosecutor includes information that questions the credibility of one of the arresting officers, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

Angelini was arrested after an officer pulled him over for weaving. In his police report, the officer said Angelini's speech was slurred, that he had bloodshot eyes, that he had to use his car door to remain standing and that he failed a field sobriety test.

The report also said Angelini admitted having "maybe three drinks." He refused to take a breath test.

Jay Norton, an attorney who handles DWI cases and has acted as a special prosecutor, has seen a video of Angelini taken at the police department about an hour after his arrest. The video has not been released.

"He clearly is not intoxicated on that video," Norton said. "If this had gone to trial, it would have been a not-guilty."

After Angelini's arrest, District Attorney Susan Reed filed a motion to recuse her office from prosecuting his case. She cited years spent as Angelini's colleague on the bench as well as other connections that created a conflict of interest for the office. Reed and Angelini are both Republicans.

Shortly after his arrest, an administrative law judge ruled that Angelini be prohibited from hearing any case in which the officers who arrested him were involved.

That judge rejected a request from Reed that Angelini be recused from hearing all criminal cases.

Source: Houston Chronicle

After much research, I've decided to plunk down some cash for the new ebook reader from Amazon.  I was an early adopter of the Franklin Rocket ebook about 10 years ago but stopped using it for various reasons.  I'll update the blog on how it works out.

If you want to see the Kindle for yourself, here's a link:

Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device

Former Houston lawyer Stuart Bryson Collins, now the owner of an organic farming business in Canada, is fighting extradition to Texas. After Collins gave up his Texas law license over a discipline suit and moved to Canada, a grand jury indicted him on two felony charges of misappropriation of fiduciary property from clients. Collins says he is not guilty of the charges, and is appealing the extradition orders in Canadian courts. "The moment I step out of Canada, it's all over for me," he says. Continue . . .

If you have recently been charged with a Collin, Dallas or Denton County DWI and submitted to field sobriety tests then you NEED to read this article by JL Booker from the journal of Science and Justice Journal volume 44 pages 133-139 (18 June 2002) about the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus Test (HGN).
Download file

The HGN test is typically the first test officers administer to drivers suspected of DWI. The officer will instruct the suspect to focus his or her eyes on a stimulus (usually a light or the tip of a pen) that is positioned 12-15 inches from, and slightly above, the subjects eyes. The officer will then make several passes in from of the subject’s eyes to look for an involuntary jerking (nystagmus) in the subjects eyes.

Prosecutors and police officers will say that the HGN is the most "scientific" and accurate of the three SFSTs. Articles like Dr. Bookers and Dr. Rubenzer's HGN study may open your eyes to the flawed "science" of the HGN eyes test.

Continue . . .

The insurance industry has been the leading advocate for red-light cameras since they were first introduced in the United States and it’s worth examining why they push so hard for their installation.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), which is wholly funded by the insurance industry, is often quoted by media as an unbiased source despite the fact they benefit financially from their installation.

Richard Retting is a senior transportation engineer for IIHS. He has even been called the "father of the red-light camera movement" in the United States. He’s also the author of nearly every red-light camera study that suggests that installing the cameras has a positive impact on traffic safety. However, as reporter Matt Labash pointed out in his 2002 series on red-light cameras, Retting and IIHS have a vested interested in seeing red-light cameras go mainstream:

Retting is a near ubiquitous presence in the debate. Statistics floated by his Institute are unblinkingly regurgitated by journalists, even if no one notices, for instance, that they have variously put the number of annual red-light-running fatalities at 750, 800, or 850 depending on which day you catch them.
[…]
Taking Retting’s word on the safety benefits of camera enforcement, say the critics, is a bit like trusting the Tobacco Institute that smoking increases lung capacity.
[…]
While most states don’t yet assess driver’s license points for automated infractions, plenty are toying with the idea, and a few, like California and Arizona, actually do. The insurance industry, then, has a financial stake in seeing as many photo tickets issued as possible, since speeding and red-light infractions allow insurance companies to bleed their customers with higher premiums for the next three to five years.

As Labash mentions above, cities in the state of California report ticket camera violations to insurance companies. This is an important point, especially when you consider that a recent report from the LA Times showed that 80% of red-light camera tickets in Los Angeles were right turn on red violations, which have never been linked to increased accidents.

Obviously, this is an insurance company’s dream.

They’re able to charge higher premiums without exposing themselves to increased risk of insurance claims.

Ultimately though, the red-light cameras are only the foot in the door that will allow speed cameras to become mainstream. Because the majority of speed limits in the United States are underposted, it’s likely that the majority of drivers will exceed the speed limit at some point. Once the speed cameras are installed, the discretion of an officer is removed from the equation and a huge increase in the number of speeding tickets becomes inevitable.

It’s already happening in Arizona where speed camera tickets are being used to balance the state budget.

With each ticket leading to increased insurance premium, drivers are being hit hard financially. Meanwhile, insurance industry profits skyrocket.

There’s no conspiracy theory necessary to understand why the insurance industry loves ticket cameras. It’s logical for them to support them.

But it’s also logical for everyone to take their pro-camera research with a grain of salt.

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Most of the time the War on Drugs is actually a pretty sad thing, but every once in a while, something amusing comes out of it:

An unwitting passenger arriving at Japan's Narita airport has received 142g of cannabis after a customs test went awry, officials say.

A customs officer hid a package of the banned substance in a side pocket of a randomly chosen suitcase in order to test airport security.

Sniffer dogs failed to detect the cannabis and the officer could not remember which bag he had put it in.

Who said there’s no such thing as unwitting possession?

Continue . . .

Atlanta ranks 12th on this list.A sort of interesting article. They rely on various factors such as liver disease, DUI arrests and some statistics from MADD in determining the ranks.

See article HERE.

Continue . . .

The Intoxilyzer 5000, is the breath machine used by law enforcement officials in the state of Texas, as well as, other states across the nation. Many defense attorneys have challenged this machine for various reasons including, but not limited to, the age of the technology, the lack of scientific validation of the “source code”, the numerous assumptions that the machine makes in formulating its results, and the availability or alternative, more accurate, testing equipment.

Apparently, a Unites States Congressman is preparing to launch his own attack on the credibility of the Intoxilizer 5000. Rep. Vito Fossella, who was recently charged with DWI in Virginia, plans to fight the drunken-driving charges against him by taking on the breathalyzer machine. According to a recent report from Friday, his defense lawyer subpoenaed files from the Kentucky manufacturer of the Intoxilyzer 5000, which rated his blood-alcohol level as 0.17, more than twice Virginia's legal limit.

As stated in the news report, "The records are being subpoenaed from the custodian of records for CMI of Kentucky," an Alexandria court supervisor told The News. "It's [technical] information on the Intoxilyzer - documents reflecting any problems with troubleshooting, repair and diagnosis of any problems on it." Police agencies nationwide use the Intoxilyzer, but its results have often been questioned.

"There have been successful challenges to how the Intoxilyzer 5000 works," said Canadian ex-cop Jan Semenoff, an expert witness in U.S. cases who wrote a textbook about the machine.
Semenoff also said the devices have generally had "a fairly stable performance" over the years.
Virginia lawyer Scott Surovell said one of his clients was convicted last year but avoided jail because the Intoxilyzer evidence was tossed by a judge.

"Fossella has a chance of winning. This equipment is over a decade old," Surovell said.
All 220 of Virginia's aging Intoxilyzers will be replaced this year, said state crime lab director Peter Marone. "It's harder to get parts," Marone said. A Virginia state budget document last year was more blunt, calling the machines "dated, unstable and unreliable."

Continue . . .

Law enforcement officers in all 50 states utilize Standardized filed sobriety tests (SFSTs) to determine the impairment of a person’s driving due to alcohol influence. The SFSTs are comprised of a battery of three tests: 1) Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test (HGN), 2) Walk and Turn Test (WAT) and 3) One Leg Stand Test (OLS). For a more in-depth explanation of these SFSTs click

here

.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) developed these SFSTs and is in charge of training law enforcement personnel on the procedures of the SFSTs. NHTSA conducted a series of scientific research studies to determine the accuracy of the SFSTs. After collecting data from these studies, NHTSA analyzed the laboratory data and found:

• HGN—by itself, was 77% accurate
• WAT—by itself, was 68% accurate
• OLS—by itself, was 65% accurate
• By combining HGN and WAT and 80% accuracy can be achieved.

One can therefore see from the results above, that even if the proper procedures are followed by officers conducting the SFST, these filed tests are at best 80% accurate in determining the impairment of drivers.

Read more . . .

Thanks to lawyers that have been fighting for the source code that controls the operation of the Intoxilyzer it looks like the tide is turning. Previously, prosecutors all over the country have been objecting to turning it over because it is a “trade secret” and that the State does not have it in their possession.

Some Judges have Ordered CMI to turn it over and the company has been flatly refusing to do so. See Contempt Order here. cmi-turnover-order.pdf

CMI has finally decided to cooperate. They are willing to let it be examined subject to a protective order. I don’t believe this has been accomplished yet and we have not seen the proposed protective order and how restrictive it will be. See attached. CMI memo

Continue . . .