Don't drive too slow!
Worried about getting arrested for DUI in Massachusetts? Step on it!
Earlier this week, the Appeals Court upheld a Massachusetts DUI arrest and resulting conviction where part of the police officer’s reasoning for the traffic stop was that the DUI defendant was driving too slow.
Donald W. Standley's Massachusetts DUI Lawyer argued that the police did not have the sufficient “reasonable suspicion” which would warrant their stopping, and later arresting, Mr. Standley for drunk driving. There is no law in Massachusetts which requires drivers to operate at a certain speed. Instead, speed limits prohibit drivers from going too fast and the law requires slower moving vehicles to drive in the right-hand lane so as to allow faster vehicles to pass them.
In Standley’s DUI case, the prosecution also claimed that, for no apparent reason, stopped his car almost in the middle of the road in a manner that obstructed the lane of traffic and that it was an “odd place” for him to have stopped. The Massachusetts Appeals Court found that the above-described driving behavior allowed the police to stop the driver and the Mass. OUI arrest and conviction which followed the traffic stop were legal.
Notwithstanding the result in this case, a good Massachusetts DUI Lawyer will always thoroughly analyze the facts and circumstances surrounding the traffic stop to see if suppression is possible. If the DUI traffic stop is suppressed, anything that flows therefrom is inadmissible in any DUI trial, as a matter of law. This usually results in a not guilty verdict or a dismissal of the DUI charges.
