The Defense Never Rests

Could this happen in Indiana? One state drops BAC threshold

On Behalf of | Mar 21, 2017 | Criminal Law, Drunk Driving

It’s not as though most men and women in Indiana or anywhere else can imbibe more than an alcoholic beverage or two and safely assume that they are firmly under the drunk-driving threshold posited by the 0.08 blood-alcohol content standard operative across the United States.

Put another way: For most people, there’s not a lot of wiggle room after even a couple of drinks have been consumed.

As most of our readers likely know, the 0.08 BAC threshold is the go-to guideline across the United States, although there is nothing immutable about it.

Reference Utah, which has just passed a bill to drop the BAC limit applicable to drinking and driving in that state to 0.05, a threshold that, while certainly striking many Americans as abnormally low, is a commonly observed barometer across much of Europe and the rest of the world.

Utah’s legislation awaits the signature of its governor, who has already said that he strongly endorses the downward tick.

Indiana lawmakers are free to engage in debate focused upon the drunk driving level in the Hoosier State at any time, although there doesn’t currently seem to be any collective predilection for doing so.

And, at any rate, the BAC level indicated by a breathalyzer is far from being an Indiana motorist’s sole concern in many instances where a police officer alleges drunk driving.

As we note on our criminal defense website at the Indianapolis law firm of Patel Defense, myriad factors can come into play during a DUI-related police stop, which can in many cases cut either way.

We point out on our site the potential for a motorist’s constitutional rights to be violated at the very outset of a stop and thereafter during an officer’s questioning and investigation. Maybe your detainment wasn’t even warranted, with a police officer using some pretext to stop you. If that was the case, any subsequent search and testing might be challenged as unlawful.

We additionally note that field sobriety tests are sometimes administered in a questionable manner; that a BAC testing machine can be improperly operated and/or maintained; that witness testimony might be flawed; and that evidence collected might have been subsequently tainted for any number of reasons.

It is our job to carefully probe all those variables and craft a defense strategy that seeks a best-case result for every client.

We welcome readers’ contacts to the firm.

Archives