An appellate case decided earlier this month illustrates how not to attack the constitutionality of a law. In the case of State v. Topolosky, the Tenth District Court of Appeals upheld Ohio’s DUI/OVI marijuana law. Coincidentally, just before the case was published, I wrote about this topic in this blog,…
Interpreting Ohio’s DUI/OVI sentencing law can be complicated. The sentencing statutes take up many pages in the Ohio Revised Code (O.R.C.), and appellate courts have issued many decisions interpreting those statutes. One issue which has led to confusion is how a court is supposed to sentence a defendant convicted of…
I’m traveling to another state for a seminar next week. It just so happens the state is Nevada, and the seminar is in Las Vegas. For me, there is no risk of being convicted of DUI in Nevada because the trip is all about education! Sometimes, however, an Ohio driver…
One of the most frequently asked questions for criminal defense attorneys is about the impact of Miranda warnings. A previous article in this blog explained the holding of the Miranda case. After the publication of that article, the United States Supreme Court decided a Miranda-related case which affects investigations in…
DUI/OVI cases are litigated within a framework of rules. Some of those rules regulate the exchange of evidence between the prosecution and the defense. That exchange of evidence is the ‘discovery’ process. The rules for discovery are found in state and federal law, and the intricacies of the rules are…
My rental car, brilliantly parked outside our B&B in Portree on the Scottish Isle Of Skye. I thought they were all drunk: they were driving on the wrong side of the road. But they weren’t drunk, they were just driving in Scotland. And so was I. I drove on the…
Suppose you are driving around Columbus on I-270 and an officer pulls you over for speeding. The officer gets out of his cruiser and walks up to your car. When the officer reaches your window, you see on his uniform he is from the Cincinnati Police Department. ‘That’s odd’, you…
This is no police drug dog, it’s my dog Rex. He could be a police dog…if he weren’t so spoiled. If a police officer stops you for a minor traffic violation, how long should the officer be permitted to detain you? Suppose the officer issues you a ticket or a…
Steven Anderson was drunk when he passed out on a rural highway. He was wearing dark clothing and went to sleep on the dark road around 1:00 am. There were no street lights in the area, and he was lying where there is a bend in the road. Darryl Saunders…
Sometimes rules are not made to be broken. When it comes to cases of alleged driving under the influence, there are rules for drivers, and there are rules for the government. When a driver breaks the rules, there are consequences. There are also consequences when the government breaks the rules.…