Адвокаты по уголовным делам в Оклахоме выражают опасения по поводу нового закона о вождении в нетрезвом виде

Criminal defense attorney raises concerns about change in Oklahoma DUI law OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (KOKH) — Last week, prosecutors and law enforcement partners in Oklahoma were in Oklahoma City preparing for a change in state DUI law. State lawmakers passed legislation this past legislative session to allow prosecutors to prosecute more than one DUI offense in one year as a single felony. Criminal defense attorneys like Frank Urbanic are preparing too. "Normally in order to prosecute a DUI as a felony, there has to be a disposition of the previous DUI. So they had to have either pled guilty to it or gone to trial and be found guilty. But what this one does, it's unique in that it takes essentially two pending cases that are both misdemeanors and makes them one felony," Urbanic said. Urbanic explained his issues with the new law, including how it might impact a jury's decisions. "Jurors could be giving more weight to a case when a case with good evidence is lumped together with a case with bad evidence," he said. "So for example, a case goes before a jury and there's a lot of great evidence on DUI one, but not good evidence on DUI two. But because the jurors are seeing both of these cases together and they're like, well, this guy was really drunk on DUI one well, he was probably drunk on DUI two. When had it been tried separately, that person might have been found not guilty of DUI number two." Urbanic also has concerns with what constitutes as a violation under the new law. "Is it an arrest? Is it a charge? Is it a conviction? And I'm of the belief that at the very least it's not a conviction, because the language in the statute says that in order to put this statute into action, then the first violation has to be or the first charge has to be dismissed. So that leads me to believe that somebody has to be at least charged with one DUI first in order to begin the eligibility for this statute," Urbanic told FOX 25. He said he feels like the new law is going to cost his clients more time and money litigating these issues. "I don't think the legislature thought through the implications of all of this. I think they want to put themselves out there as being tough on crime and against DUI, but the problem is they don't put much thought into these things. They don't get much input from the criminal defense community and then the rest of us are left picking up their pieces." The new law takes effect on November 1.