Buffalo Criminal Defense Attorney Blog

While some of us have a hard time believing it is already the end of May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and law enforcement agencies across the country know all too well that Memorial Day weekend is approaching. And, as usual, Memorial Day weekend means the NHTSA's national seat belt campaign, "Click It or Ticket."

From Sunday, May 20, to Sunday, June 2, New York state troopers will join city and county police in a concerted effort to enforce the state's seat belt laws. While skeptics say the campaign is a fundraiser for law enforcement, the NHTSA thinks otherwise. This is the time of year that families take the road, and this is the official start of summer. There are few better times to remind drivers and their passengers that seat belts save lives.

The National Transportation Safety Board has stirred the pot a bit with its recommendation that states lower the legal limit for driving while intoxicated from 0.08 percent to 0.05 percent. The board explained last week that drivers with a 0.05 percent blood alcohol content are still impaired; at that level, the alcohol still affects vision, decision-making and overall ability to operate a motor vehicle safely.

New York criminal defense attorneys and restaurant owners are not so sure. That low a limit is unrealistic, for one -- it would limit a woman weighing less than 120 pounds to less than one drink and a 160-pound man to two drinks. The law change would affect the people who are already responsible drinkers, and they are not the ones the state should be spending resources on, critics say.

A 44-year-old Wyoming County woman recently entered a guilty plea in a rare embezzlement case. While working as a Buffalo company's bookkeeper, the woman took $1.3 million in company funds over a two-year period. According to the Erie County District Attorney, embezzlement cases involving more than $1 million are relatively rare -- just six guilty pleas or convictions in the past 25 years, three since 2009.

Officially, the defendant pleaded guilty to first-degree grand larceny, falsifying business records and offering a false instrument for filing -- the highest charges available to the district attorney. Because the dollar amount exceeded $1 million, the penalties are more severe. She faces a maximum sentence of 25 years, which could be reduced if she is able to make restitution. The court will decide on a sentence in July.

A New York state senator from Niagara Falls introduced a bill earlier this year that would, he says, save kids' lives. The bill calls for every school bus to be equipped with an ignition interlock device. Drivers would have to blow into the devices before they could start their buses.

In a recent interview, the senator admitted that he has no hard data on the number of school bus drivers who have been accused of or ticketed for driving while intoxicated. What he had instead was the story of an incident on Long Island in which the driver of a school minibus crashed the vehicle into the garage of a private home.

A Genesee County judge heard testimony this week regarding the expenses incurred by the victim of an assault. The victim, a 70-year-old woman, said she has spent $2,100 for medical bills and other care related to the injuries she sustained on Christmas Eve 2011.

In August 2012, a jury found the 27-year-old defendant guilty of second second-degree assault under New York's elder abuse law. The law increases the charge from first-degree to second-degree assault if the victim is 65-years-old or older and the alleged assailant is 10 years younger. In November, the court sentenced her to five years in jail followed by three years of probation; the judge noted in particular that the defendant had not expressed a moment of remorse in his opinion.

A recent poll of U.S. drivers identified a list of basic "go-to" explanations given to police during a traffic stop. The most common, as we said in our last post, was "I didn't see the sign." We have discussed distracted driving enough here to know that even experienced drivers can miss a "no turn on red" or "yield" sign in the seconds it takes to look at a cell phone. 

The reason for the stop is not the focus of this post, though. Here, we want to talk about what to do when you are pulled over. Even if you know you did not commit a traffic violation, a wise driver will not give a state trooper or a traffic cop any more reason to write a ticket. According to an auto insurance information service, following these basic guidelines may help.

Take a minute and think about the last time you knowingly violated a traffic law. Did you not quite come to a complete stop at a stop sign? Did you go through a "pink" light? Did you turn left during rush hour because you were lost in the mean streets of downtown Buffalo?

Even if you have not been pulled over for a traffic violation, you have probably thought about what you would tell the officer. If you have been pulled over, you may be among the 20.4 percent of drivers who say, "I didn't see the sign telling me not to do what I just did." 

A recent report shows that police and prosecutors are helping to overturn wrongful convictions more now than ever before. The report draws on data from the National Registry of Exonerations, a program run by a law school consortium. The registry includes information about exonerations granted from 1989 through 2012.

During that period, the names of 1,050 individuals were cleared of property and drug crime convictions as well as convictions for violent crimes. More than 100 of those were in New York, and four of those were in Erie County. It is interesting to note that all four of the Erie County cases were cleared with DNA evidence.