The Firm
DWI Defense
Missouri DUI/DWI Defense
We are convinced that scholars will one day look back at this time in our history and conclude that the turning point for the demise of our 4th Amendment rights began with DWI and drug cases. Drugs and drunk driving are big problems, and nobody, including us, condones them. We, too, have lost close friends and relatives in drunk driving accidents and to drugs.
What we can’t do is overreact to these problems. We cannot trade our basic civil liberties for public security. There is a line that cannot be crossed, but we have now crossed it. As a result of the hysteria and the public outcry, we have bastardized long-standing rules of evidence, good science, and the Bill of Rights in exchange for the expedient removal of drunk drivers from the highways.
Yet, we do nothing to educate the public about how alcohol may affect their ability to operate a motor vehicle before they come to the lawyer’s office with their first DWI. Many times, they just didn’t know how much alcohol they could drink given their body weight. Many of our clients are 100 lb. women, who by drinking two glasses of wine will raise their blood alcohol level above the legal limit. Many are young people, who are inexperienced drinkers. Most are just people who don’t know how many is too many. They tell us if they had known, they wouldn’t have had that last beer, that “one for the road.” Has anyone ever thought to include alcohol education in the high school curriculum? Has anyone thought to include an alcohol consumption chart in the state’s driver’s license manual so that people will at least have an idea how much they can and can’t drink? Some states have. Why is Missouri always last? Don’t Drive Drunk commercials are great, but how does one know how much he or she can drink?
As attorneys, and as Americans, we will do everything within our power to defend the Constitution from the oppression of the masses. With our last dying breath, we will fight the Department of Health’s “junk science,” the legislature’s Draconian rules of evidence, and the attempts of judges to take away our civil liberties. We have the scientific means, but not the will, to improve a system where the innocent may be convicted, and the guilty can go free. Yes, this is a turning point for the Bill of Rights. As a wise judge once so eloquently said:
“Carnage on the highways, and all other crimes, are subservient to the carnage at Valley Forge, Yorktown, and Gettysburg, where the civil liberties now hanging in the balance were carefully shaped and hammered into rights so clean and so pure that they stand the test of time and resist encroachment.” Hon. Jim Randall, McDonnell v. Com’r of Public Safety, 460 N.W.2d 363 (Minn. App. 1991)
Please contact us to schedule a free initial consultation. We will review the facts of your case and provide you with an honest assessment of what you might expect in terms of a possible outcome.