Fight A DUI

John P Muncer, 47, was arrested and charged with DUI following a minor accident at the American Legion post in Point Township, PA Thursday evening. Muncer, an active Northumberland County assistant District Attorney, has checked into an in-patient rehabilitation program Friday after being charged with two counts of driving under the influence and careless driving.

The county’s District Attorney, Tony Rosini, said that the criminal case will be handled by the state Attorney Generla’s office, and that Mr. Muncer is taking a voluntary paid (sick) leave during rehab, and may face diciplinary action upon his return.

The Camarillo Acorn reports that the winter holiday crackdown on drunk drivers in Ventura (CA) county led to 287 arrests, with a majority of those (135) coming from the Ventura office of the California Highway Patrol.

“We are very pleased with the number of DUI arrests our Avoid the 14 officers made over the holidays,” said Senior Officer Humberto Jimenez of the Oxnard Police Department, campaign coordinator.

“We prevented a great many deaths and injuries by taking these dangerous drivers off the road,” Jimenez said

The crackdown, from December 15th to midnight on January 1st, included sobriety checkpoints, in-city DUI patrols, CHP freeway saturation, and an emphasis on regular beats focusing on DUIs during the period.

California is one of many states that will have a significant increase in DUI checkpoints over the upcoming holidays, with 93 law enforcement agencies spending $3.7 million over the next few weeks. As studies have shown that mandatory checkpoints produce a reduction in alcohol related crashes and fatalities, drivers can expect most of the $3.7 million to be spent in DUI checkpoints.

“Public safety is my No. 1 priority,” said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Driving drunk or otherwise impaired is unacceptable and a serious threat to themselves and to those around them. I am committed to supporting our state’s law enforcement with the tools necessary to detect and remove impaired drivers and keep our roadways safe,” said the Governor.

Meanwhile, Delaware police will hold six DUI checkpoints throughout the state over the Christmas weekend. Since Thanksgiving, Delaware police have arrested 123 people, with 43 of those DUI arrests coming last weekend.

Hawaii brings a slightly different twist to the DUI checkpoint news, with  students and relatives of DUI victims helping Police on the Big Island during the coming week. At the Pahoa checkpoint, students from Pahoa High School and students from University Mothers against Drunk Drivers (UMADD) will display posters, wave signs, and distribute bottled water to sober drivers as they pass through the checkpoint. In Waimea, relatives of a brother and sister killed in separate drunk driving crashes will display photos of their loved ones.

Nevada will also be participating in DUI crackdowns, with extra focus on the News Years Eve celebrations in Las Vegas and Reno. Fittingly, Nicole Richie, who had been scheduled to host a New Years Eve party in Las Vegas, has announced that she will step down as host following her own DUI arrest last week in Los Angeles.

In the past, we’ve covered how the low carb diet can disrupt many DUI tests due to changes in body chemistry, but it’s worth pointing to an article from a Las Vegas DUI attorney stating that Diabetes can have similar results caused by the same changes in body chemistry (specifically ketoacidosis) that many low carb dieters will show.

Ignoring for the moment the inherent inaccuracy of these breath alcohol machines, most suffer from a little-known design defect: they do not actually measure alcohol. Rather, they use infrared beams of light which are absorbed by any chemical compound in the breath sample (including ethyl alcohol) which contains the “methyl group” in its molecular structure; the more absorption, the higher the blood-alcohol reading. The machine is programmed to assume that the compound is “probably” alcohol. Unfortunately, thousands of compounds containing the methyl group can register as alcohol. One of these is acetone. And a well-documented by-product of hypoglycemia is a state called ketoacidosis, which causes the production of acetones in the breath. In other words, the Breathalyzer will read significant levels of alcohol on a diabetic’s breath where there may be little or none. See “Diabetes, Breath Acetone and Breathalyzer Accuracy: A Case Study”, 9(1) Alcohol, Drugs and Driving (1993).

No problem, you’re not diabetic and you eat a standard diet? A normal drop in blood sugar can still cause your BAC to report artificially high on a breathalyzer.

Actually, you don’t even need to be a diabetic to display hypoglycemic-induced symptoms of intoxication. Perfectly normal, healthy individuals can experience temporary conditions of low blood sugar after consuming small amounts of alcohol, resulting in exaggerated but false symptoms of intoxication. Fasting glycemia can exist where a person has not eaten in 24 hours or has been on a low-carbohydrate diet. Production of glucose in the liver is stopped while the alcohol is broken down. Result: the blood sugar level will drop, affecting the central nervous system — and producing symptoms of a person under the influence of alcohol.

With the weekend arrest of a woman who critically injured a pedestrian while driving under the influence put the State College police above the record of 430 nighttime DUI arrests in a year, with a month of holidays to go. The arrest of Katherine Applegate (23) - who was driving a Ford Explorer with a BAC of .208, twice the legal limit, when she hit pedestrian Michael Drauch (18) - tied the department’s record set in 2003.

The department did not explain the increase in arrests, but speculated it could be either more people driving drunk, increased enforcement by police, or some combination of the two factors.

Steven Edward Latham, 29, of Conway SC, was granted a $120,000 bond Tuesday after being arrested Sunday for two counts of felony DUI and a violation of the seat belt law following a crash that killed Porter Lee Richardson (39) and his wife Donna (38).

Latham, driving a Chevrolet Blazer, is accused of disregarding a traffic light and hitting a Chevrolet Malibu at 7:30 a.m. last Thursday. Porter Lee Richardson, 39, and his wife, Donna Richardson, 38, of Conway, were riding in the Malibu and were both killed in the crash.

Latham was flown from the scene of the accident to the Medical University of South Carolina, officials said. It was unclear how much time he spent at MUSC, because his identity was not available until Monday.

The Richardsons had just dropped off Porter Richardson’s son at the outlet stores before the crash.

Senior Trooper Sonny Collins with the Highway Patrol said authorities would not release any more information, including the results of any blood-alcohol tests, until Latham’s case goes to court.

The LA Times has a DUI-related article on a Compton man arrested Monday for flashing an official-looking state badge issued by Mervyn Dymally. The suspect, Pirikana Likivu Johnson (27), attempted to flash a badge identifying him as an Assembly commissioner when he was confronted earlier this year by Redondo Beach police. When he became belligerent, he was arrested and found to have a blood-alcohol level 0f 0.10%.

“This isn’t a simple DUI,” Redondo Beach City Atty. Mike Webb said Monday. “You have a situation where somebody is allegedly using a badge and falsely identifying themselves to get special favors and special treatment.”

Officers were unfamiliar with the title but arrested Johnson on suspicion of drunk driving and released him pending an investigation. State officials said there was no such title as Assembly commissioner.

Johnson did not respond to telephone calls and visits to his Compton home seeking comment earlier this year. On Monday night, he was being held in the Redondo Beach City Jail in lieu of $60,000 bail on charges of impersonating a state official, driving under the influence of alcohol and driving without a license.

Dymally’s office issued more than a dozen of the metal badges — which are emblazoned with a likeness of the state Assembly seal and the words “California State Assembly Commissioner” — to donors and constituents. Some recipients said they received the badges after making donations.

Dymally, 80, a Democrat from Compton, was in Sacramento on Monday to be sworn in for another term in the Assembly and declined through a spokeswoman to comment on the case. But in interviews earlier this year, he called the credential “a nothing badge” and said such honorary shields are commonplace.

“The possession of these badges is not an illegal act,” he said. “If it is, then arrest everybody. Arrest some white people too.”

The Orange Leader has an article noting an interesting trend in recent DUI arrests:

“There has been an increase of DUI versus DWI because of an increase of people being on prescription medication,” said Sgt. L.L. Claybar of the Orange Police Department.

The story includes a number of specific incidents, including a woman on Hydrocodone, Alprazolam, and Carisoprodol, a combination which will clearly impair your ability to operate a moving vehicle. However, Sgt. Claybar notes that prescription drugs haven’t replaced alcohol entirely:

“Some may be more medicinal then drunkenness, but we are still seeing a fair amount of those that are intoxicated by alcohol,” Claybar said.

The Mohave Daily News has an article about the death of Dustin Shamblin, 21, who was struck and killed on Highway 95 as he walked home following the DUi arrest of a friend.

In the early morning hours of Oct. 29, Dustin William Shamblin, 21, was walking northbound in the right lane of Highway 95 between Hulet and Jerome avenues when he was struck and killed, an Arizona Department of Public Safety report stated.

Shamblin and Regina Guarisco, 20, of Fort Mojave attended a Halloween party and were on their way home when Guarisco was stopped and arrested by sheriff deputies for misdemeanor driving under the influence, driving under the influence with a blood alcohol level more than 0.08 percent and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Guarisco was taken to county jail and the car towed leaving Shamblin, who was also intoxicated, alone on the roadway.

Police note that their policy prevents them from driving passengers home, though they apparently offered to call for a ride.

The Chicago Tribune has news on their latest DUI trial, John D. Homatas [25], who is accused of killing 8 1/2 month pregnant April Simmons [27]:

KANE COUNTY — A Wayne man accused of killing a friend and a woman who was 8 1/2 months pregnant in a January drunken-driving crash lost a battle Tuesday to move his trial from Kane County.

But Ogle County Judge Kathleen Kauffman, who has been specially assigned to the case, said the defense could request again to move the trial if finding unbiased jurors proves difficult.

John D. Homatas, 25, is charged with aggravated DUI and reckless homicide in the deaths of April Simmons, 27, of Yorkville, her unborn daughter and John Chiariello, 25, of St. Charles, who was in Homatas’ car.

Homatas’ attorney, Gary Johnson, argued that extensive publicity surrounding the case would make it impossible to find impartial jurors in Kane.

He cited more than 60 TV news stories and dozens of newspaper stories about Homatas’ case.

Assistant State’s Atty. Clint Hull countered that merely hearing about the case does not cause prejudice. The defense had offered no evidence that the publicity had influenced public opinion, he said.