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LEGAL
TIPS
DUI Offender Penalty :
Steven, 24, of Hoover, Alabama: Second conviction, five years' formal probation, $2,323 fine, 10 days in jail, second-offender drinking-driver program, driver's license restricted.
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Major voting rights victory in Alabama |
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — On Aug. 23, in a major voting rights victory, an
Alabama judge ruled that state and local election officials have
improperly disfranchised eligible voters in violation of the state
Constitution.
The court in Gooden v. Worley ordered the Alabama Secretary of State
and Jefferson County Registrar to immediately “cease and desist in
refusing voter registration” to individuals on the basis of a felony
conviction.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and Alabama
attorney Edward Still filed Gooden v. Worley to challenge the unlawful
denial of the right to vote to eligible voters with felony convictions
— Alabama law only barred people whose felony convictions involved
“moral turpitude,” which the statute did not define.
The Alabama Secretary of State, however, had effectively expanded
the reach of the law by instructing voter registrars to refuse
registration to all people with felony convictions.
“The court’s ruling recognizes that the fundamental right to vote ‘for
which so many fought and died’ cannot turn upon the subjective whim of
state and local officials,” said LDF assistant counsel Ryan Paul
Haygood. “This victory strengthens the integrity of Alabama’s
democratic processes.”
It was not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that
plaintiff Richard Gooden, like thousands of other African Americans,
was permitted to register to vote. Until that time, Alabama
relentlessly and systematically pursued efforts to deny voting and
office holding to Blacks. Gooden was registered to vote from the
mid-1960s until 2000, when he was convicted of felony DUI (driving
while intoxicated), and informed by the State of Alabama that his
voting rights were revoked.
The court concluded that the status quo prior to the ruling
required “guesswork about what ‘moral turpitude’ actually means, all in
violation of every citizen’s right to due process” and that “only the
Legislature has the constitutional power to decide which crimes involve
moral turpitude.”
“Given the fundamental nature of the right at stake … [and] until
such time that there is a statute on the books specifying which crimes
may properly serve as a basis of disenfranchisement, no defendant may
take any action to interfere with a citizen’s registration because of
any criminal conviction.”
The Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, state field director of the Alabama
Alliance to Restore the Vote, praised the Court’s decision: “The
court’s ruling protects the voting rights of the most vulnerable among
us, particularly when those voting rights should not have been lost in
the first place.”
Author: NAACP Legal Defense Fund
www.naacpldf.org
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DUI
& Driving Under The Influence:
DUI Statistics :
The statistics range from the past three fiscal years, which run from July 1 to June 30. In each fiscal year, total arrests, including DUI arrests, have increased, while motor vehicle accidents have gone down. While 183 total accidents were recorded in year one, only 116 were recorded in year three, a 37 percent difference. During that same time, 154 DUI arrests were recorded in year one, contrasted to 235 in year three, a difference of 34 percent.
United States DUI Stats :
All 50 states now have two statutory offenses[1]. The first is the traditional offense, variously called driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), driving while intoxicated/impaired (DWI) or operating while intoxicated/impaired (OWI). The second and more recent is the so-called illegal per se offense of driving with a blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08% (previously 0.10%) or higher. The first offense requires proof of intoxication, although evidence of BAC is admissible as rebuttably presumptive evidence of that intoxication; the second requires only proof of BAC at the time of being in physical control of a motor vehicle. An accused may be convicted of both offenses, but may only be punished for one.
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