Dan Noll Discusses Checkpoints In Illinois Part 2 of 2
By Dan Noll on January 20th, 2014 in Criminal Defense, DUI Attorney, DUI Law
Dan Stratford: It sounds like, well on the one hand, it’s good that there is awareness raised, and possibly a lot of effort into preventing people from getting DUIs. But the other truth is that they are going to arrest more people. Maybe disproportionately a higher number of people than they would any other time of the year. Is that a fair assessment?
Daniel Noll: That is correct. The authorities in the Department of Transportation claim to do this in part for awareness. If a person doesn’t know that drinking and driving is illegal by 2013, I don’t know what rock they’ve been hiding under. The main purpose is to make sure they’re keeping this Federal grant money and to get as many arrests as they can get to try to bring an increase in revenue to the state of Illinois.
Dan Stratford: Interesting perspective. Definitely appreciate getting your perspective on that. Does that mean that during that time, if they’re going for quantity and there’s really a push for a lot of DUIs during a certain period of time, do you see more errors made? Especially if they’re bringing in, I can think of the fact that they’re bringing in maybe part-time or part-time retired police officers. Do you see more mistakes made during the holiday season from officers or is that something you can comment on?
Daniel Noll: That’s a fantastic question actually, Dan, because generally, the more they try to get a lot of arrests on one night, and at times, the procedures to arrest somebody for a DUI can elapse. Other times, especially during Christmas, New Year’s and Thanksgiving, Sangamon County will have a judge on call that is specifically there to authorize warrants for blood. They will take a person to a hospital and draw their blood for blood-alcohol content levels, and those can all be issues to look at in the cases. The main focus authorities are looking at are for speeding violations, seatbelt violations, equipment violations. It could be out tail lights, something to that effect, and the emphasis on that is use that as a pretext to investigate DUIs.