As Pinellas County’s economy shrinks, local law enforcement agencies continue to lay off patrol officers. Members of special “DUI Squads” or “Wolf Packs” have been cut and some agencies have completely eliminated plans for future “DUI Check Points.” This highly coordinated and sometimes multi-jurisdictional effort is designed to nab impaired drivers even before they commit a traffic infraction or cause an accident.
As a member of Pinellas County’s “NHTSA DUI Gold Standards Committee,” Frank Russo is privy to this type of information. Russo is an original member of the committee and is one of only two criminal defense attorneys selected to serve. Other participants include Pinellas judges who handle large numbers of DUI cases, senior prosecutors, leaders of local law enforcement and all other “stakeholders” in the system that ultimately become involved after an individual is arrested for DUI. For example, also represented on the committee are senior probation authorities, the medical examiner’s office (who is charged with the duty of performing urinalysis testing in DUI cases), the head of the Suncoast Safety Council – DUI School and the Clerk of Court. The general make up of the committee is designed to provide a fair representation from all sides. This allows voices to be heard from each member’s unique perspective in the areas of arrest, prosecution, defense, the criminal justice system, as well as, probation and rehabilitation. See: "Can't we all reason together ethically? The answer is yes!" The Honorable Karl Grube, County Court Judge and Judicial Outreach Liaison for NHTSA Region IV.
The last meeting confirmed what many members of the DUI Gold Standards Committee already suspected. That is, that budgetary cut-backs imposed by law enforcement have resulted in a significant drop in the number of people being arrested for DUI in St. Petersburg, Clearwater and all other areas of Pinellas County. The committee reviewed which revealed that in the first two months of 2009 alone, the number of DUI arrests in Pinellas County fell by a whopping 433 cases when compared with the same time period in 2008. The precipitous drop appears to have really taken a foothold in about November of 2008 and has continued its present course to date. Since that time, the number of DUI arrests has been slashed by roughly 50% from corresponding year-to-date monthly figures.
Links:
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Former State Prosecutors
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Suite #112
St. Petersburg, FL 33702
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Click Here to read Russo & Russo’s article on DUI and Urine Testing.
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