On June 23, 2016, the United States Supreme Court issued North Dakota v. Birchfield, which held that warrantless blood tests cannot be justified under the search incident to arrest rationale, and, as a result, a driver may not be informed they are subject to increased punishment in the event of…
When a DUI defendant loses at trial, he or she can appeal to the intermediate court based on legal errors that potentially occurred at trial. One such challenge is sufficiency of the evidence. For example, a Pennsylvania DUI defendant recently argued on appeal that the evidence produced at his DUI…
In October 2016, a lower court granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss the charges filed against him in July 1990 based on a violation of Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 600 (prompt trial). On appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, the Commonwealth argued that the trial court abused its discretion…
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania appealed from the order granting Colby Michael Snyder’s motion to suppress in a Pennsylvania DUI case. Last month, the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the lower court’s decision. In June 2016, a Pennsylvania State Trooper noticed Appellee speeding, weaving, and changing lanes without signaling on Interstate 81.…
Pennsylvania DUI law can often be nuanced and complex, as a recent case illustrates. In December 2014, K.W. was involved in an accident in Cameron County in which her car struck two pedestrians. One of the pedestrians sustained serious injuries, and the other was pronounced dead at the scene. When…
At approximately 12:50 A.M. on July 4, 2015, a Ross Township police officer was observing traffic from a parking lot on McKnight Road in his marked police vehicle. He observed Appellant make an illegal U-turn on McKnight Road at Nelson Run Road. The officer pulled out of the parking lot…
A defendant appealed from a Pennsylvania DUI sentence that was beyond the maximum range, and the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed. In June 2015, the appellant was stopped for driving erratically. Police administered three field sobriety tests, which the appellant failed. The police also soon learned that the appellant’s license was suspended.…
A Pennsylvania driver huffed difluoroethane, or DFE, while driving and killed another driver in a subsequent collision. Based on her past of losing consciousness after huffing DFE, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded this summer that her conduct constituted malice sufficient to support her convictions of third-degree murder and aggravated assault.…
A driver appealed from a judgment of sentence imposed after the trial court’s denial of his petition for a writ of certiorari challenging his conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol and a combination of drugs. The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the appellant’s Pennsylvania DUI conviction. In December 2013,…
On July 22, 2015, a driver was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of a controlled substance. On April 15, 2016, he petitioned for acceptance into the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program. The Commonwealth approved his petition, and, on June 2, 2016, the trial court accepted him into…