Today's Los Angeles Times has an article profiling an LA attorney who has made defending DUI arrests his specialty. I think the article is at best very misleading, and at worst, a free advertising coup for him. The fault I have with the article is that is portrays him as a DUI defendant’s best choice. He even has a slick ad campaign calling himself "Top Gun" DUI attorney.
Myself, having been run through the DUI mill twice with Claire, I know a little bit about the DUI industry. I call it an industry because that is what it has become. It is not about public safety. It is not about punishment. It is all amount money.
Now before you all get all bent out of shape, hear me out. I am not condoning drunk driving. Not at all. What I am doing is pointing out how what seems like a good idea has been perverted beyond recognition. In fact, I am convinced that that government wants people to drive drunk.
In two words, here is why: Easy Money.
Crime doesn't pay. Almost all of the criminal defendants marched in front of a judge have little to no money on them. The law enforcement, prosecution, and punishment of criminals is expensive. However, there is an exception to the rule... DUI. DUIs, unlike other crimes, make money. They are highly profitable both for the legal profession, and for the law-enforcement profession.
The reason for this is because this is the only law the "normal", law abiding, taxpaying, working citizens break (speeding too). That is why for so long drunk drivers were not taken seriously. They were just regular folks who had one too many. Then came MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. They brought the focus of lawmakers on drunk driving and succeed in getting the laws tightened. They got the drinking ages raised to 21. The got the drunken limits dropped to .08. They got the fines and punishments raised so that they were no longer slaps on the wrist.
Then something very bad happened...
The courts, law enforcement, the lawyers, and other services discovered that there was a lot of money to be made. Even better, they get to set the prices to whatever they feel like. There is no accountability, and they get to do it all on the name of protecting to public! What a great scam.
I say this because I had the audacity to ask the Sheriff's Department where all the money I was paying went. I asked them how they came up with the prices they charged for the court-ordered "education" services. I asked them to justify what they were demanding. I was told to shut my mouth. That it is none of my business. And that convicts don't have to right to ask questions.
It wasn't me who was busted. It was my wife. But the money came from our family budget. It was my name on the checks. Whenever I asked, I would run into a brick wall. I swear one time up the county jail a deputy almost took to beating me with nightstick for asking such questions. I obviously hit a nerve with them. I was asking questions that were not supposed to be asked.
Specifically, here how the scam works.
The Lawyers: The lawyers, like Top Gun in the LA Times article, earn thousands of dollars representing defendants in DUI cases. They charge about $4000 to $9000 dollars for a run-of-the-mill first-time DUI case. But a lot of people don’t know what they are getting for their money. What they get with DUI law-mills, like Mr. Top Gun, is nothing but routine paper pushing cranked out by a secretary on a computer. They file all the usual challenges knowing full well that none have a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding. I would not be at all surprised if the LA County DA’s office simple rolls their eyes when they get a form letter from Top Gun’s firm, and throw it in the trash. The whole exercise is going through the motions.
It is easy money. Get paid shitloads up front and go through the motions of a well rehearsed script. Mail in routine defence paperwork, then plead no-contest to the charges. The defendant pays the price and the lawyer goes golfing.
The problem with this is that they are not getting any real defence for their money. What they are getting is someone to hold their hand. If they really want to defend themselves, then they are going to have to come up with another $10k and more for real service.
They key is to find a lawyer who specializes in DUI cases personally. Not one that has a paper factory with his name on the letter head, but he doesn’t even know who you are. He or she should not be part of a large, we-do-everything, law firm either. They are just as bad. They charge a lot of money for mediocre service.
The DMV: Above and beyond the criminal charges and punishment, there are the “civil” fees that are added to everything. The DMV has gotten in on this racket too. They have discovered that they can charge special fees (don’t call them “fines”) to DUI convicts. And the great thing about is, they don’t have to answer to anyone about it. They get to charge whatever they feel like. I asked how they justify raising the price of a drivers license by hundreds of times just because it was a DUI return. They claim some vague mumbo-jumbo about “public awareness campaigns”. But you don’t have the right to question them since you are a convict. Yea, right. That money goes right into someone’s pocket.
The “Education” Industry: Now this is the part that really peeves me off. One thing that is required of convicts is that they attend a multi-month alcohol education class. I don’t have the problem with the concept, or the class. What I have a problem with is how it in implemented. First, they tell you what and where the class is. You are not given any choices. They also tell you how much you have to pay. Again, no choice in the matter. It costs hundreds and hundreds of dollars. When I asked how they came up with that price, and how “XYZ Industries” managed to secure the contract to provide these classes, I was told to shut my mouth. The whole arrangement stinks sky-high of corruption and collusion. Wow. A vendor gets to win a contract for a service that is court ordered and they get to set the price to whatever they want.
Now here is the other part of their scam. They set it up so you almost have no option but to fail and pay the fees all over again. Because you have no choice as to when or where, they raise the chances that it will conflict with your work or children. They schedule them at crazy times, I think in order to make it impossible to catch public transportation there. All in order to increase the odds that you might be a minute late. If you are a minute late, you are denied entry. If you miss a class, then you have to start all over again from the beginning. No credit or refunds for fees paid.
In Claire’s case, she was lucky. She didn’t work, and I was able to buy her a license that allowed her to drive to and from the class. Most people in class were not so lucky, and about half had to do-over because of work or family conflicts.
Jail: Even the jail gets in on it. In addition to the fines, lawyer fees, DMV fees, class fees, court fees, and a million other fees, the jail also charges money. They allow these low-risk offenders to perform public service, for a steep fee. Yup, they charge you not to be their guest. So not only do they don’t have to spend money feeding you and paying guards to watch you, they get to charge you money for the privilege. The Sherriff’s department doesn’t really want you in their jails. They would rather just have the money. The whole thing just struck me as en extortion racket.
What Is Drunk?: Another thing that peeves me about the drunk driving laws is how they define drunk. It strikes me as extremely simplistic to claim that someone who is .079999 is perfectly fine to drive, and someone who is .00001 more than that is drunk and get the full brunt of the law thrown at him or her.
What they do here in Western Australia, that I think is a smart idea, is to define multiple levels of drunk drivers. Blow 0.05, and you are on the first level of drunk driving. A .06 is the next, up to 0.08 where you are considered to be criminally drunk. Each level has it's own punishments that get measurably more serious as the level goes up.
The Solution: I am convinced that the elimination of drunk driving is the last thing that the state and local justice departments want. Because if they really did want to eliminate it, then they would implement real solutions. Not just feel-good solutions that serve principally as a source of revenue.
They should eliminate all the money. It has corrupted them. If they were serious, then they should simply sentence first time drunk drivers to a year in prison. Nothing else. No forced classes that they won’t pay attention to. No cleaning parks in lue of jail time. No enormous DUI industry. People will learn soon enough how serious drunk-driving is when they know they are going to locked up for a year for doing it.
Until that happens, the whole thing is nothing but a money making extortion racket.
