Attorney Chris Hatch Explains What To Do When You Are Stopped for Driving While Intoxicated

Share   Driving while Intoxicated is a serious criminal charge. Senior Associate Chris Hatch recently sat down with KTBS-TV New Reporter Sara Machi to discuss the advice he would give to someone stopped by a police officer and suspected of DWI/DUI. Chris explained that he recommends  that anyone stopped by the police and suspected of DWI/DUI  should be polite and cooperative, but should not agree to take any field sobriety test, breath test or blood alcohol test.He also discusses the penalties for DWI/DUI including community service, probation jail time and the loss of driving...

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Happy Constitution Day 2014!

 On this Day in 1787 thirty-nine citizens signed the document that would become the Constitution of the United States of America. The Constitution is not a mere lawyers document. It s a blueprint for the erection of  simple freedoms and a work-plan for the exercise of every day liberties in a free society. Take a few moments today to think about that, and if you have some time surf on over to the National Constitution Center’s Constitution Day webpage.  They have all kinds of great resources about the Constitution, its history and about how it is supposed to work.  ...

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Federal Communications Commission moves to reign in profiteering of Jail and Prison Inmates by Long Distance Phone Companies

Share In a quiet but major development this past week the FCC brought some much needed relief for the families of inmates in America’s jails and prisons. One of the most vindictive aspects America’s war on crime has been the efforts of government agencies, including prison and jail administrators to profit from the epidemic of mass incarceration. One of the ways of doing this is to contract out the provision of telephone service for inmates to third party phone companies who charge exorbitant rates for local and long distance calls and then  kickback a portion of the huge profits they take as a “commission” paid to the sheriffs and wardens of the facilities. Our own Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell has taken on the fight at the state level with limited success. See, this op-ed piece  in The Advocate, and this release from the Capital News posted on Campbell’s Facebook page. Now the Federal Communications Commission has weighed in with a major action to reign in the profiteering on the back of the families of prison inmates.  Here is a link to the full text of the FCC Press Release FCC Announcement DOC-322749A1  This is a major victory in the continuing efforts to restore fairness to the correction systems of...

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Freedom is a Dangerous thing

Share Today is the 237th Anniversary of our Independence from the oppression of the English Crown. We would do well to remember that the freedom our Founders fought for was not freedom from foreign aggression, but freedom to enjoy the simple and most basic rights of English citizens seized by a well intended but wrongheaded government under the claim of protecting the security of its people and its colonial borders.   On this Independence Day we need only to look to Egypt to be reminded that Freedom is never really taken by foreign armies. It is given over to domestic armies by a people too fearful to muster the courage to face the risks posed by a dangerous and uncertain future. And the future is always dangerous and risky.Keep this in mind the next time some foolish politician entices your vote with promises to make our community and country “safer” by being “tough on crime” and protecting you through expansion of the law-enforcement/prison industrial complex with more laws criminalizing more conduct and incarcerating more of our citizens.   Honor the values of Freedom that America was founded on at the ballot box. Don’t vote out of fear. Vote out of faith in the belief that all are created with equal rights and deserving of the opportunity for renewal and redemption that lead our forefathers to this land. Then our children will be able to enjoy the blessings of Freedom along with hotdogs, fireworks and watermelon on long lazy summer days like today.  ...

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San Francisco Chronicle Reports Innocent Man’s DNA was Found at Homicide Scene

Share DNA has been touted as one of the greatest crime-solving technologies to be developed. But using DNA to identify criminal suspects is not without its problems. Many crimes do not yield themselves to being solved by DNA evidence, and the mere presence of DNA evidence without more, tells us very little about whether or not the person whose DNA was found was actually involved in the criminal act. DNA is trace evidence. It is genetic material that we leave behind whenever we come in contact with an object or another person. The odds of any two persons having the same DNA genetic sequence is extremely high, though not really as impossible as it might seem. So, finding a person’s DNA  at the scene of a crime, or on the body of a homicide victim, might seem very strong evidence indeed that the person whose DNA was found was the perpetrator of the crime. Even more so, if the person had no other connection or contact with the crime scene to explain how his or her DNA might have been left there innocently. But there are problems. Consider what happened to 26-year-old Lukis Anderson, who was accused of murder after his DNA was found underneath the fingernails of a homicide victim. Henry K. Lee reports in this San Francisco Chronicle article how DNA was transferred from Anderson, who was picked up at a San Jose Liquor Store by two paramedics and taken to a hospital, to the murder victim several hours later when the paramedics were called to the crime scene and handled the body of the victim. The first problem is that DNA is easily transferred form one surface to the next. Wipe your face with a towel and you leave DNA on the towel. Wipe another object with that same towel, or another person, and your DNA is transferred to the object or person. The second problem is that technology for amplifying DNA is so powerful that DNA profiles can now be obtained from even exquisitely minute traces of genetic material. That makes the risk of contamination of the DNA sample or the surface from which the sample is taken a serious problem. Contamination can lead to the accusation of an innocent person and possibly a miscarriage of justice and wrongful conviction. When you consider that in the first 200 DNA exonerations by the Innocence Project, three involved wrongful DNA inclusions at trial, you begin to see the magnitude of the problem. Moreover, one can see how it is that DNA, rather than helping to convict the guilty, can actually work to convict the...

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