Why attend?

Operating under the influence cases have remained high-stakes litigation, whether you're the defense attorney or the prosecutor. The legal and practical ramifications of Melanie's Law, enacted less than three years ago, include the longer loss of driving privileges for repeat offenders and incentives for the offenders to take the typically incriminating breathalyzer test. More recently, the Supreme Judicial Court ruling in April 2007 on the admissibility of the breathalyzer results, coupled with the previous existing enactment of the .08 per se law and the provisions of Melanie's Law, has created new obstacles for the defense attorney to overcome.

At the same time, growing public attention to this crime burdens a prosecutor with an expectation of delivering convictions, regardless of the level or lack of evidence-such as the motorist's refusal to submit to field sobriety tests or to take a breathalyzer.

It is therefore incumbent upon both the defense attorney and prosecutor seeking success in these cases to stay abreast of the case law and Registry of Motor Vehicle ramifications, and to know the workings of an OUI arrest.

You will learn...