Facing a DUI charge in Maine raises two urgent questions: what happens next and how much does a DUI lawyer cost. You want clear information fast. This guide explains what drives legal fees, common payment plans, and how to find value when hiring a DUI attorney.
Maine criminal defense attorneys should protect a defendant’s legal rights while ensuring that Portland and Saco courts don’t wrongfully impose excessive sentences for convictions. If you face an allegation or criminal charge, you need to consult with the best criminal defense attorney near me.
The Webb Law Firm is one of the most highly-rated law firms in Southern Maine that provides dedicated criminal defense attorneys. John Webb and Vincent S. LoConte are two top-rated criminal attorneys in Portland ME who tenaciously will protect your rights for the duration of your case.
You may feel as though your privacy is being violated if your neighbor installs a security camera which—inadvertently or otherwise—captures activity in your yard. Yet there are no laws in Maine which prevent a person from installing cameras pointing outwards from their own property.
The law does not treat your backyard or the outside of your home as spaces where you have the reasonable expectation of privacy. Your neighbor is allowed to visually record you in these spaces for the same reason that Google can take satellite images of your land.
If you find yourself in this situation and are uncomfortable, you may try speaking with your neighbor or installing something on your own property to block the camera’s view. These solutions are of course more likely to be effective if your neighbor is well intentioned and your property simply appears in the background of their recording.
It is well known that when you see an emergency vehicle driving up behind you with its lights or siren activated, you pull over. But one important law that many motorists fail to follow is Maine’s “Move Over” law which also requires you to move over when an emergency vehicle is stationary on the side of the road.
When an officer pulls a person over, that officer, and sometimes even the occupants of the stopped vehicle, are standing on the side of the road. This is a dangerous situation to be in especially when on a busy road and especially at night. However, regardless of traffic conditions or the time of day, it is important that Maine motorists exercise caution, and follow the law when confronted with this situation.
Title 29-A §2054-9 is Maine’s “Move Over” law. What does the law require? When you pass a stopped emergency vehicle that is using an emergency light, you must:
You’ve been stopped and arrested for Operating Under the Influence of alcohol (OUI/DUI/DWI). You posted bail, and now you’re home. You’re terrified and have no idea where things go from here. All you did was drive your motor vehicle! You cannot believe you got a first offense DUI in Maine. At work everyone asks, “A drunk driving charge? Is this your first OUI?”
What were your test results? Blood alcohol level? Breath test? Blood test? Refusal? What are the first offense OUI penalties? If this summons for OUI/DUI/DWI is a subsequent offense to other significant driving convictions, we’ll be discussing them in a future blog. But for now, let’s take a minute and talk about the Maine first DUI.
When you are charged with a first offense in Maine, you actually have two cases going on at the same time. I try to get clients to visualize two trains on parallel tracks leaving the station together. On one track you have the court (the judge, the clerks, the DA’s Office), and on the other track you have the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. In most cases, long before the arraignment date for your court case (Plead not guilty!), the Bureau of Motor Vehicles BMV (also commonly known as “DMV”) will send you a Notice of Suspension. This is where we discuss loss of license. If you have not contacted a law firm at this point, you should do so now.
For a law enforcement officer to stop you, they must have a “reasonable articulable suspicion” that criminal activity is underway. One issue that gives rise to being stopped is a little known requirement that motorists move over when they see emergency flashing lights on or adjacent to the highway.
You’re driving on the highway and see flashing lights what do you do? Well, it’s what you don’t do that could cost you.
In 2001, a law requiring motorists on Maine’s roadways to slow down and/or pull over for an emergency vehicle was implemented. Title 29-A §2054-9 the “Move Over” law requires the operator of a vehicle who is passing a stopped emergency vehicle using an emergency light, to use due regard to the safety and traffic conditions, requiring that the driver:
The use of electronic surveillance by law enforcement is quickly approaching critical mass across the United States. Between the Internet, street-level surveillance camera systems, GPS tracking technology and automated license plate recognition systems (ALPRS, “automated license plate recognition system” is a system of one or more mobile or fixed high-speed cameras combined with computer algorithms to convert images of registration plates into computer-readable data), the amount of information that could be available to the government about your life and activities is extremely interesting. And not necessarily interesting in a good way.
The Maine Legislature has concerns about the impact that non-court regulated police surveillance activities could have on our lives. In the last session, the Legislature limited the use of automated license plate recognition systems to the police, Maine Department of Transportation and Maine Turnpike Authority. It also limits the storage of the data to twenty-one (21) days unless specific data is considered intelligence or investigative information or commercial vehicle screening data. 29-A M.R.S.A. § 2117-A.
But is this enough? When you leave your home to go shopping, do you expect that the police are going to scan your license plate, tag it in the computer and potentially track your activities by making a record of where you were on a particular date and time? Will they or do they have the ability to instantaneously cross-reference that tag to your driving record? There is nothing in the modified law to stop law enforcement from posting a ALPRS on the road into and out of your town, thus tracking who is coming and going. The ALPRS could prove I was at the bakery and off my diet! Triangulate the ALPRS with credit/debit card data or Transpass and my day-to-day movements are locked-down.
Southern Maine Criminal Lawyer Blog