We imagine at the established Illinois criminal defense firm of Sullivan Law in Fairview Heights that most readers of our blog view the answer to today’s above headline query obvious.
A representative response might simply be this: because one affects mature individuals and the other is focused upon kids, and adults and children are far from the same.
If Illinois and Chicagoland police stop you on suspicion of driving under the influence, refusing to submit to a breathalyzer or field sobriety tests will initiate serious consequences, and often these are worse than being found of guilty of driving under the influence.
When law enforcement pulls over a driver, he or she faces stark choices. Refusing to take the sobriety or blood test is no way to escape a DUI charge. The police will immediately arrest you and suspend your driver’s license for refusing a breath test. After you’ve been arrested, the police can legally demand you take a sobriety test.
When a lawyer looks to defend a client accused of possession of a controlled substance, there are three main issues that come to the fore: type of drug, who had possession and how it was obtained by law enforcement.
Federal law has supremacy over state laws, so states have adopted the five-tiered federal schedule in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970:
A criminal record can seriously impact your life. It hurts your prospects when applying for a job, housing or trying to get financial aid. Even if you were not convicted of a crime, a criminal charge generally shows up on a background check.
However, you may be eligible to have your record either expunged or sealed, depending on your circumstances. With an expungement, a criminal record is destroyed and is no longer be accessible to anyone. When you have a record sealed, the record still exists, but is not available to the public, though law enforcement has access.
You see the lights in your rearview mirror, hear the sirens and your heart races. Having a police officer is a stressful experience whether you’ve done something wrong or not. Knowing how to handle yourself can help make a traffic stop more tolerable while not incriminating yourself.
The best way to avoid incriminating yourself is to know when to speak to the police officer and when to consult with a lawyer. While it’s wise not to speak to the police without a lawyer after they’ve placed you under arrest, there are other times when answering police questions is less likely to incriminate you.
Men often feel like they have little chance to defend themselves in a domestic violence case. They are often stereotyped as being the culprits in a familial or couple dispute that turns into a physical attack. In reality, men are victims of domestic violence and physical assaults almost as much as women.
Illinois can have some harsh charges for those with domestic violence convictions. If you potentially face charges in this category, it can be very difficult to recover from the penalties. As you construct your defense against this allegation, there are a couple of key steps you must take to ensure the best result.
As you might already know, drivers in Illinois have sometimes refused Breathalyzer tests during DUI stops. Law enforcement has begun responding to these refusals with what they call “No Refusal” DUI Enforcement.
Often used only on holidays, weekends and other targeted windows of time to combat drunk driving, the No Refusal approach has gained traction throughout the country and has begun to be rolled out on a more expanded basis in counties such as McHenry County.
Local, state and federal law enforcers are aggressive and notably active regarding their investigation into many areas of alleged criminal misconduct.
Some alleged criminal activity features facts that reasonably seem to be straightforward and sometimes even certain. We will leave readers to their own imaginations in contemplating such scenarios.
Yet we will also note this at the proven criminal defense Sullivan Law firm in Fairview Heights: Many criminal accusations in one select realm are almost murky and marked by subjectivity in a high proportion of instances. The surrounding “facts” are also often presented through a lens that can cloud the reality of what really happened.
No driver likes to see red flashing lights in the rearview mirror. But for those who have illegal drugs in the vehicle or are driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, they are most likely thinking about what might happen now that police have pulled them over. What are their rights during a traffic stop?
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Sullivan Law, PC 10326 Lincoln Trail Fairview Heights, IL 62208 Phone: 618-277-1400 Fax: 618-293-6266 Fairview Heights Law Office Map
