Pinellas County Florida Criminal Lawyer Blog

The next time you are considering driving after a few drinks, ask yourself if you have $10,000 to spare.  DUI's in Florida are EXPENSIVE. 

First there are court costs, which have gone up significantly in the past few years.  Then there are costs of probation, cost of DUI school, cost to have your driver's license reinstated (click here for DHSMV reinstatements), cost of the ignition interlock control device (click here for pricing), cost to maintain the device, cost to get to work because your driver's license is suspened, increased insurance premiums, costs of alcohol treatment and evaluation.  Notice I didn't include cost of an attorney.  My husband, Daniel Pawuk, who has significant DUI trial experience starts at about $2000.

Here's something to think about, I got this ad from a former client who now owns a cab service:  

In an article yesterday from the St. Petersburg Times, it seems that St. Petersburg mayoral candidate Deveron Gibbon's does have a clean driving record.  The paper printed it wrong in an article from Sunday's paper. 

I personally have my own issues with the Times and their lack of fact checking as well as their one sided approach to journalism.  But the July 8, 2009 article brings up a good point:  Driving records recieved from either the Clerk of Court, or the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles are often incorrect or misleading.  Which causes problems for people when they apply for jobs, get background checks, or ultimately have their licenses suspended based on incorrect information. 

What should you do about it?  Check your driver's license regularly at the DHSMV website and if you think the information is wrong, call us.  We can't guarentee we can fix it, but our motto is:  "the fix it firm." 

Florida law enforcement agencies use a breath testing device called the Intoxilyzer 8000 to measure an arrested person's blood alcohol concentration and secure evidence to convict citizens of DUI.  Does this small machine accurately measure how drunk you are?  Why is it supposed to be more accurate than the machine previously used, the Intoxilyzer 5000?  Was that machine accurate if it was replaced?

The science behind breath testing offers insight into the shortcomings of the breath testing machine.  Issues such as the following: 

 
Did my partition ratio differ from the 2100:1 standard used in the Intoxilyzer 8000's software?

Was there another chemical in my breath which the machine misread as alcohol? (the Intoxilyzer does not measure the ethyl alcohol but molecules in the methyl group)

Was my body temperature elevated? (a 1% elevation could cause a 8% increase in the breath result).

The following video clip is interesting.  Defense attorneys have known of this defect in the Intoxilyzer machine for years (positive alcohol reading after eating bread), and manufacturers of the device certainly have a scientific reply for why this result doesn't prove that the machine is inaccurate.  However, the fact that bread is causing the instrument to show an alcohol reading makes you wonder how accurately the software inside this machine is reading alcohol results that lead to convictions.

Did you know you can get DUI when driving a golf cart, riding lawnmower, go cart, bicycle, or scooter?

Check our this video my father sent to me- I think it may be staged but I can assure you, I've seen the State Attorney in various counties prosecute DUI's on things like this.

Lawnmower_DUI_Taser_Arrest.wmv