DUI Enforcement in Anne Arundel County
DUI charges are enforced very heavily in Anne Arundel County and throughout the rest of Maryland. The County spends lot of money advertising on billboards and TV commercials for you to not to drink and drive. A good portion of first learning how to drive under the state-run programs is about responsible driving. If they are going to put that much effort and time into these specific details, then they are going to spend that much time training their officers and make sure that that much effort is put into enforcement. For those charged this means that your case needs to be taken extremely seriously and an Anne Arundel DUI lawyer should be contacted right away.
DUI Checkpoints in Anne Arundel County
They are reasonably common, and over the last several years it has quieted down in the way that they are used. Checkpoints are very specific and they have to be done in a proper way.
Proving that it is a good checkpoint and a valid checkpoint is important. With all that effort being made, all these things need to be done in such a fashion to show that it warrants the use of checkpoints. There are plenty of websites out there that you can log into that warn you on what good checkpoints are. On Facebook, people post things. It doesn’t seem to be as efficient as it used to be, but you will find them sometimes on main roads where you see lots of restaurants and bars.
Why Does Law Enforcement Target Certain Roads?
They target certain roads mostly because these roads are often more commonly travelled roads where DUI stops have been made. It is very logical if you think about a road that has a main stretch with a lot of bars and a lot of restaurants and a lot of attention given to the fact that people go in and they are likely to drink and law enforcement just sits there and they are just waiting for someone to pull out erratically or do something to gain their attention and then they will stop the vehicle. They do use more common sense than anything else when picking areas to actually do the patrols.
Are DUIs An Area of Focus?
A substantial portion of what the police do is patrol and they are doing traffic enforcement. If you look at it from what they do in percentages that is why there is so much attention given to DUIs.
Does This Focus Ever Result in Innocent People Being Charged?
Absolutely. There is an enormous amount of pressure on law enforcement officers to have results and in doing so they will push for them. People can be wrongfully accused and in fact wrongfully convicted. Officers may not be as honest as they should be and their observations may not be truthful.
What we find as time goes forward and more and more officers and cruisers are equipped with video and audio is that sometimes the reports are a little exaggerated. They would have stated an overwhelming odor of alcohol and the individual stumbled out of the vehicle, but it shows that they stepped out of the vehicle cleanly, reached into their back pocket, and handed over their license. These videos are going to be making more headway for defense attorneys to protect their clients.
How DUI Cases in Anne Arundel Are Unique
Anne Arundel County, just like any of the other 23 counties in the state of Maryland, is a county with a high amount of law enforcement and there is no greater amount of detail given to one crime over another. You don’t really find that in any jurisdiction. They would give attention evenly across the board and traffic enforcement is certainly something that is an elevated portion of what law enforcement does.
In Anne Arundel County, you have city areas, town areas, and rural areas and they are equally patrolled. There is nothing much that makes it different from any other county other than it is a larger county and certainly it has a higher volume DUIs as compared to some other places in the state of Maryland.
