Miami DUI Blog

How to Avoid Appearing At The Arraignment, After your arrest under DUI charges, and after your release through bail, you will receive a Court Notice issuing you a summons to appear before the Court to plead guilty or not. This first hearing is called an arraignment. You are required to plead guilty, not guilty, or no contest. At this point, the State will not provide any information regarding any witness, Police report, video recordings, or medical reports relating to the case. If you appear on your own, you may be subjected to pressure from the Prosecutor Attorney.

In the absence of your Defense Counsel, the State Attorney will send all necessary documents to you, and prepare the case for future hearings. The Prosecutor will offer you a one-time deal for arraignment. Failure to accept the offer will result in more severe penalties in the future for the defendant. The defendant is deprived of investigating their own case and defense if they appear at the arraignment on their own. In these circumstances, the Court will try to settle the arraignment by applying pressure, so that they can reduce the burden of pending cases.

Those who are unfortunate to not have a Defense Counsel at the time of hearing their arraignment will have to withstand the pressure alone, unsupported of experienced legal techniques, and ultimately submit the case themselves. The only way to get out of the situation is to hire a West Palm DUI Lawyer to stand as your Defense Counsel. Your Attorney will then file a Notice of Appearance, and a written plea of not guilty. This avoids having to appear for the arraignment, and protects you from the pressure of the Prosecuting Attorney. The only way to avoid arraignment without knowing the State’s evidence against you is to hire a West Palm DUI Lawyer. The Defense Attorney will take all necessary steps to ensure that the defendant is not required to attend the first arraignment.

Alcohol affects people differently. While one person could be calm and composed after a few drinks, another individual may feel drowsy and intoxicated after consuming just two drinks.  According to West Palm DUI Lawyer – John Musca – these situations are common as the amount of alcohol which a body can tolerate depends upon body constitution, sex and how often does the person drink. The police department states that some people when caught under DUI are observed to be in complete control of their senses while others are just not able to remember the chain of events during interrogation. Law enforcers undergo specialized training to catch these offenders. The training includes watching and inferring from body language and critical examination of driving method and behavior of the driver at the check points. However, the police often make mistakes in correctly identifying such people despite availability of tools meant to catch offenders. The National Highway Traffic Safety Association has printed an inventory of behavioral patterns which is used by the law enforcers to nab people driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs, cocaine etc. This inventory consists of percentages that dictate the probability of a driver to be drunk. Some of these parameters are taking a much wider turn than required, hitting obstacles and other vehicles on the road, meandering while driving, driving in the center of the road, drifting away from the main road, driving at an extremely slow speed, applying brakes abruptly without reason, driving in the wrong direction, turning without proper signal, inconsistent acceleration and not using headlights when required. However, all these are just probabilities and cannot be used as evidence to accuse a person of Driving Under Influence.

Should you land in such situations it is best to seek legal and professional help.  Contact a West Palm Beach DUI Lawyer at Musca Law to receive solid advice about the defense of your DUI situation.

Former West Palm Beach Firefighter Capt. Rick Curtis is fighting to get his job back, after his DUI conviction was overturned on the grounds that the judge had an “intimate relationship” with a rival firefighter.

County Court Judge Paul Damico ordered a new trial on Wednesday after Curtis’ attorney William Abramson filed a motion to overturn the conviction and hold a new trial. Curtis alleged that Judge Marni Bryson, who heard the case in May, had an “intimate relationship” with Doug Greene, an adversarial firefighter of Curtis and the vice president of the West Palm Beach Association of Firefighters.

Curtis said he didn’t learn of the relationship until after the trial, and Bryson never disclosed it.

Bryson later recused herself from the case, but never confirmed or denied the relationship with Greene. Greene also didn’t comment on the relationship, saying he first wanted to review Abramson’s motion.

“The judge is going to be an unbiased,” Curtis said on Thursday. “Judge (Bryson) allowed the case to continue when a police officer was out of state. The day before the trial she allowed a new witness. She did a lot of things that affected the outcome of the trial.”

Curtis said he was not drunk at the time of the arrest. He said he refused a sobriety test because he has a bad back and was worried that he would appear intoxicated.

Curtis is one of three West Palm Beach fire-rescue workers who unsuccessfully sued the fire department, claiming that they were denied promotions because of their race.

However, in August 2010, the Palm Beach County Office of Equal Opportunity ruled that Curtis was discriminated against.
The city ignored the order from the administrative agency to pay Curtis $56,506 in lost wages and $24,000 in attorney fees and give him the next open battalion chief or assistant chief position.

Curtis, 45, was arrested in January 2010 by North Palm Beach Police for DUI. He was also charged with speeding but that charge was dropped.

Bryson sentenced Curtis to three days in jail, even though the state attorney’s office didn’t request any jail time. She blasted Curtis for using his position as a firefighter to receive preferential treatment, which the city used in its determination to fire Curtis. Curtis has denied trying to use his position as a firefighter to his advantage.

Former Fire Chief Phil Webb, who retired in May, used the conviction and the harsh criticism by Bryson as grounds to terminate Curtis.

“He should get his job back,” said Abramson, who is not related to the writer of this article. “The point of the termination was what happened in the case. The conviction has been vacated and the case is going back to square one.”

On Thursday, the city released a statement saying Curtis would not be reinstated: “The termination was based on a number of factors and not based solely on the guilty verdict which was reached by the jury. Mr.Curtis remains charged with a crime and the city stands by the termination and the reasons for which the action was taken.”

Curtis said he will “absolutely” sue the city. He said he’d been written up in the past for “unfounded” charges of being late to respond to a call and missing an intubation, but he said no firefighter has a perfect record. The city didn’t cite any past charges in its termination letter.

“That’s double jeopardy,” Curtis said. “They’re trying to say it was other things, using past accusations.”

Lia Gaines, president of the West Palm Beach branch of the NAACP, said Curtis already has an ongoing lawsuit with the city and, “they’re continuing to strengthen his suit. My taxpayer money is being utilized to defend this injustice. It’s time for the city to just stop and do the right thing. It’s bordering on the ridiculous now. It’s almost unconscionable.”

Union president Tom Wesolek, who refused to fight for Curtis’ job, was not immediately available for comment. Vice President Greene was also not immediately available for comment.

On June 16, Wesolek said the city had just cause for termination. Although other firefighters have kept their job following DUI and other misdemeanor convictions, Wesolek said, “Other employees resolved their DUI charges by other means that the legal system allow — plea bargaining it down, taking lesser charge, not requesting and going for a jury trial.”

Wesolek also criticized Curtis for using the race card.

“He’s one of those guys that when something goes wrong he tries to point to someone and say, ‘you’re against me because I’m black.’ He’s very well known for that and people are tired of hearing it,” Wesolek said.

In an affidavit, Curtis alleged that in 2006, Greene “sought to disqualify me from participating on a test to become captain. Wesolek said Greene did not participate in the union’s hearings on whether to back Curtis in an appeal to the city.

Abramson, who was not Curtis’ attorney in the initial trial, said he will review the entire case thoroughly. The next hearing will take place on August 15. The trial date has not yet been set.

Brooke Kennerly, a spokesperson for the state’s Judicial Qualifications Commission, said if the allegations of a relationship between Bryson and Greene are true, it could be investigated by the commission as an ethics violation by Bryson.

In February, Bryson entered a settlement agreement with the Florida Commission on Ethics after the commission recommended Bryson pay $2,100 file for filing “inaccurate or incomplete” financial disclosure at her former job as an assistant attorney general as well as during her campaign for the judicial seat. In return, the ethics commission halted any further investigation.