Steve Palmer: All right, Steve Palmer here, LawyerTalkPodcast.com for.

Steve Palmer: Those who have been following know that I have a number of different segments.

Steve Palmer: Portions, parts, divisions, uh, of the podcast. One is called DUI360. The idea is to give people a.

Steve Palmer: 360 degree approach to DUI representation.

Steve Palmer: I have done a lot of DUI representation. In fact, I was just updating my.

Steve Palmer: Uh, bio on the Lawyer Talk podcast.

Steve Palmer: Website, uh, and that incidentally should be out soon. But it was typing that Steve likes to do. Uh, or the bio said Steve particularly likes complex State and federal cases. That is true. Um, I do like those complex State.

Steve Palmer: And federal criminal defense cases.

Steve Palmer: But I love dealing with people. I love dealing with people at the most fundamental level. Uh, and that's why I like DUI representation. I find it, um, I can make an impact to help people if there's an alcohol problem and I can help people with their legal problems, uh, get through the complicated world of DUI defense.

Steve Palmer: So I've created this DUI 360 podcast.

Steve Palmer: And one of the things, you know.

Steve Palmer: Tis the season where Christmas is right.

Steve Palmer: Around the corner, um, and the holiday season is, uh, on us. Uh, I guess you could say it's.

Steve Palmer: Already on us after Thanksgiving. And what happens during the holiday season, people come home to get drunk with.

Steve Palmer: Their buddies and they drive and they get caught, uh, drinking and driving. And if you think it's a myth that DUIs, um, uh, don't go up.

Steve Palmer: During the holidays, they do. Now there's, you could argue about the reasons for that, and I think there's probably several. One would be the police go fishing where the fish are.

Steve Palmer: So they're not going to go, um, you know, they're going to go hang.

Steve Palmer: Out near the bars around the, uh.

Steve Palmer: Hotbed areas where, uh, say the entertainment districts, uh, where those places are.

Steve Palmer: I still remember the flats up in Cleveland. So places like that, they're going to go monitor because they know that's where people are leaving the bars at closing.

Steve Palmer: Time and getting in their cars and driving. Um, so police enforcement is certainly enhanced, uh, uh, during the holiday season because.

Steve Palmer: They know there's more people out drinking and driving. And that's the second point, is that there are more people out drinking and driving.

Steve Palmer: So we get more calls for problems during the holidays. And I can tell you, one way.

Steve Palmer: To ruin your Christmas budget, one way to ruin your holiday is to get a dui. So, uh, you know, maybe I would.

Steve Palmer: Say call Uber, call Lyft, don't drink, um, find a safe ride, whatever you do not to get caught short, uh, of White knuckling at home and praying. Um, now that said, what I want to talk today about is particularly checkpoints, sobriety checkpoints, because you'll start seeing these, uh, in the news or you'll hear about these on your social Media, uh, platforms.

Steve Palmer: Hey, by the way, there's a DUI checkpoint at such and such and such.

Steve Palmer: And such this weekend. Be careful.

Steve Palmer: Yeah, be careful. So I get questions all the Time. Are these things constitutional? They are constitutional.

Steve Palmer: The U.S. supreme Court, there's been case law, uh, one case out of Michigan and a few others, uh, that say.

Steve Palmer: These things are constitutional if they are designed and tailored to target something like DUIs.

Steve Palmer: Now what they can't do is be subjective. The police can't just sort of watch, uh, people as they drive by and.

Steve Palmer: Say, well, that guy looked drunk so I chose to stop his car.

Steve Palmer: No, it can't be. It has to be either random or part of a system. Uh, it can't be subjective, uh, and.

Steve Palmer: You have to stop. So I've heard stories, I've heard tell.

Steve Palmer: Of people driving home.

Steve Palmer: It's like, holy crap, we came upon it, there was these cops stopping every car and they just let us go.

Steve Palmer: What a miracle.

Steve Palmer: Nah, it wasn't a miracle.

Steve Palmer: You just got lucky, uh, because they're.

Steve Palmer: Stopping every third car or something and.

Steve Palmer: You were the second, um, and you.

Steve Palmer: Just skated through it. But the car before you or the car after you probably did get stopped.

Steve Palmer: And that's why you didn't. It's because it was part of a.

Steve Palmer: Pattern that they were following.

Steve Palmer: As soon as they subjectively say, well, look, this is the second car, but he really looks wasted, I'm going to stop him. Then it starts to challenge the constitutionality of it. Um, and by the way, a police.

Steve Palmer: Stop of a car does require justification under the fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Most states have comparable provisions. So they can't just willy nilly stop a car. Police, law enforcement, they have to justify it.

Steve Palmer: Now, once you're stopped, they can engage in investigation.

Steve Palmer: Where are you coming from tonight?

Steve Palmer: What you doing?

Steve Palmer: Smells like you've been drinking. How much?

Steve Palmer: I had to drink. I have lots of information on the 360 Series about how to handle that. Uh, but first, do no harm. If you're not drinking in the first.

Steve Palmer: Place, you don't have to worry about.

Steve Palmer: The checkpoints or any other police, uh, stops.

Steve Palmer: But if you do, if the fun has gone too far, if you have made the mistake already, you're not a bad person. You're not horrible. I pray nobody was hurt.

Steve Palmer: I can help. You can check us out@palmer legaldefense.com but.

Steve Palmer: If you just like this content and.

Steve Palmer: Want to engage, check it out LawyerTalkPodcast.com.

Steve Palmer: At the website on all the socials. Like subscribe, share, do whatever you do.

Steve Palmer: Till next time, this is Lawyer Talk podcast off The Record, on the air, DUI360 at least until now.