LegalMatch: Criminal Law

Drunk Driving With Child Now Automatic Felony in New York

Driving under the influence of any type of drugs or alcohol is ALWAYS a bad idea.  Now, in the state of New York, it is an automatic felony to drive while under the influence (with a blood alcohol level .08 and above) with a child under the age of 15 in the car.  New York now has the nation’s toughest drunk driving law with the recent passage of The Child Passenger Protection Act, or better known as Leandra’s Law. Leandra’s law, named after an 11 year old girl who was killed in a DWI crash when her friend's drunk mother crashed her car on a New York Highway, will also institute ignition locking devices for past violators.  First time offenders will face a 1 1/3- 4 year prison sentence.  

           So what exactly does it mean to be convicted of a felony instead of a misdemeanor?  Lots!  Generally speaking, a felony is a crime that carries a penalty of at least one year in prison where a misdemeanor is a much lesser sentence.  Being convicted of a misdemeanor can still carry jail time, but never usually over one year.  Some possible consequences to a felony charge include:

· It could be on your record for life

· Imprisonment

· Probation or Parole

· Significant Fines

· Loss of the Right to Possess Deadly Weapons

· Loss of Occupational License

   A recent LegalMatch study revealed the strong need for proper legal representation in cases involved driving under the influence.  The overwhelming majority of inquiries are looking for ways to completely get out or reduce the sentence of a DWI charge.  Getting charged with a DWI effects so much more than driving rights and shows the need for good, immediate legal representation. 

I think that this bill is a wonderful recognition of the increased dangers you are putting your passengers in when driving under the influence.  Whenever children are involved, there should be greater security and this legislation recognizes that need.    Hopefully the raised penalties will serve the deterrent effect the legislature is aiming for, and eventually more states follow suit. 

Punching Zombies Is Assault

It’s common knowledge that it’s only a matter of time before the undead will rise from their cold graves to wreak havoc and begin their murderous rampage against humanity.  Hopefully that occurs before all of our technology turns against us and we have to wage war against the very machines that have been making our lives easier.  Though my money is on someone nuking everything way before all this happens (I’m looking at you North Korea).  Either that or aliens will get us.

 

What was that?  I’m not nuts because I’m obviously joking about everything, except probably the North Korea thing because, well, you know…  I’m not crazy enough to think that any of that stuff will actually happen, especially the zombie apocalypse.  I mean who’s mental enough to think zombies are going to take over the world?

 

What was that?  Really?  Huh.  In the face you say and he broke his nose!?  Hey guys, in case you were too lazy to click on that last link (thereby ruining and completely missing the point of my humorous blogging style – get with it people, I’m immersing you in the story through the magic of new media), a man ordering food in a restaurant in Iowa was apparently punched twice in the face by a man accusing him of being a zombie, resulting in a broken nose for the unfortunate restaurant patron.

 

Don’t bother clicking on the link now, I just told you the whole story.  It’s too late.  You ruined it, but thank you to all who kept up with the link clicking.  You guys get a check plus.

 

Anyway, being immersed in the law as I unfortunately happily am, upon hearing any case of anything happening (especially unauthorized physical contact) I’m cursed blessed with the immediate impulsive reflex to try and analyze the situation from a legal perspective.  I need to get new hobbies law books…

 

This seems like a pretty cut and dry case of assault and battery, both from criminal and civil legal perspective.  At least from the news report it seems like the punch was thrown with the intent to cause harm (as evidenced by the broken nose) and that the victim most likely did not consent to it (as evidenced by the victim’s attempt to call the police during the attack).  Case closed right? 

 

Well, maybe or maybe not.  As strange as it might sound, the attacker may have a defense to all of this.  He did call the victim a zombie, and I suppose if he really believed him to be one and that was the reason why he punched him in the nose, he might have a defense to lighten his sentence.

 

There are a lot of different insanity standards that the courts employ nowadays, but the standard most used today is the American Law Institute test.  It basically states that a person has an insanity defense if his mental illness made it so that he lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or conform his conduct to be in line with the law.  This makes the outcome of this case a little bit murkier.  It’s also why assault cases in general can have some very unpredictable results – as evidenced by the huge number of assault and battery cases received by LegalMatch every year.

 

Anyway, the lesson here I guess is don’t look like/be a zombie.

Madness, Mayhem, and Ear-Biting.

“Mayhem” isn’t a word you see a lot of.

Sure, it might slip into the sales pitch for a shoot-em-up game or roll off a preacher’s tongue at a sermon, but chances are that you and your buddy aren’t going to be throwing it around over coffee. Well—unless you’re both die-hard Palahniuk fans and planning your own Project Mayhem. But even then, “mayhem” isn’t exactly a household noun.

In fact, “mayhem” wasn’t a noun at all when it first came into use. Evan Morris, who writes a column on word origins called “The Word Detective,” unearths the word’s roots:

"Mayhem," meaning "the infliction of violent injury on a person or thing," comes from the Anglo-Norman "maihem," or injury, which also gave us "maim." In fact, for much of their history in English since the 13th century, "maim" and "mayhem" have been nearly interchangeable words. One could "mayhem" one's neighbor, who would then have a "maim," or lasting wound or injury.

The word retains some of its original meaning in the legal world—the world that this blog loves the most! In legalese, “mayhem” is assault with the intent to maim or disfigure. Is it really a surprise that the word has come to be synonymous with violent chaos and disorder?

 

Let's examine the legal specifics of a mayhem charge.

One can only be charged with mayhem if he or she has maliciously and unlawfully removed, disfigured, or rendered useless another person’s arm, hand, finger, leg, foot, toe, tongue, eye, nose, ear, or lips.  Unsurprisingly, mayhem is a fairly serious felony.

If you’ve had the grave misfortune to have lost a piece or two of yourself to a violent encounter (and we’re not talking broken hearts and angry breakups), a good criminal lawyer is definitely in the cards for you. And if you’ve maybe, accidentally, kind of sunk your teeth into someone and bitten off their ear, you definitely want to ring up a criminal defense lawyer before you spend the next 20 years wearing stripes.

by Kate Beall

Historical Controversy Surrounds Waterboarding, Labeling It a War Crime.

An article published in the Washington Post in 2006 has been brought to light to expound on legal circumstances surrounding waterboarding. The piece, entitled “Waterboarding Historically Controversial,” highlights several conflicting examples of U.S. legal consideration of the interrogation technique—one declaring it a war crime, and others protecting it as an acceptable post-9/11 “coercive method.”

Waterboarding was initially cited as a war crime during World War II, when Japanese officer Yukio Asano was tried for using the interrogation technique against a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor as punishment for his crimes.

In 1963, 16 years after Asano’s conviction, the CIA kept now-declassified manuals outlining a similar technique. After 9/11, CIA interrogators were once again given permission to use waterboarding torture techniques against “higher-level Al-Queda operatives,” despite the fact that even presidential hopefuls like John McCain have recognized waterboarding as being “no different than holding a pistol to [a person’s] head and firing a blank” [1]. Again, I’ll cite the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit (among other things) “mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture.”

While the debate here seems solely centered around whether or not waterboarding is torture (as the U.S. government has continuously said that it does not condone torture and long ago signed on to each of the Geneva Conventions), it is difficult to say that something that puts people in immediate and aggressive fear of their lives is anything but that.

[1] "Waterboarding - The 'Un-Torture.'" Matthew Good (www.matthewgood.org).

 

by Kate Beall

Bush Threatens To Veto Bill That Bans Waterboarding Torture.

More information on the Waterboarding torture case is available through the Huffington Post.
Check my previous entry, "Is Waterboarding Torture, or an Interrogation Technique?" for legal specifics on the situation.

by Kate Beall