Light at the End of the DUI Tunnel

You need to know that there is light at the end of the DUI litigation tunnel, but you need to establish a mindset that gets you to the end of the litigation. Litigation is difficult. Court attendances are difficult for you and your entire family. DUI litigation is expensive for you and your family. But if you persist with finding your way through the tunnel, if you keep going no matter what, you will reach the other side.

Do you see the white dot 1.2 km away at the end of the tunnel? That's your focus as you work carefully with your defence lawyer on the path to an acquittal.

This tunnel took many years to construct. It is 1.2 km long. It is located at Sete Cidades (Ponta Delgada), in the Azores, Portugal. It connects one of the lakes in the Sete Cidades volcano with the outside world at Mosteiros. There is a sign at the entrance that shows how many years it took to construct. Notice, however, that the entrance contains a red and yellow "X" which means "no entry". The government authorities forbid entry. The Junta Geral, the public authorities responsible for public safety, forbid entry. But should you go through the tunnel anyway, if it is the best option to your long term reputation?

Notice the yellow and black sign on top of the entrance telling you that entry is prohibited. Your government, the Crown in Ontario and the taxpayers of Ontario, really don't want you to go through the DUI litigation tunnel by hiring a defence lawyer and asking for a trial.

The government, police, and public interest groups don't want you to defend your DUI charge. They want you to plead guilty and reduce the number of charges in the system. They make it very difficult to defend a DUI. The tunnel is very long and will be difficult for you, but if you have the right mindset, you will make it through. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Your defence lawyer needs to spend a lot of time with you and get a lot of information from you, and from disclosure, before your lawyer can show you the way to the other side. You need to spend at least an hour with a defence lawyer before you can decide which options you should choose. The defence lawyer will probably need a whole lot more time, and a whole lot more disclosure of the Crown's case against you, before the light becomes visible as a tiny dot on the other side. Then, once you know your options, the risks, and the chances of success, you decide if you want to travel through the tunnel.

My ongoing role as a lawyer, as a retired lawyer with 43 years of experience, experience doing work as both part-time Assistant Crown Attorney and mostly as a defence lawyer, is to try to make the criminal justice system better. I can best do that now, by helping younger colleagues in the defence Bar, to analyze the forensic investigations and measurements done by the police and by state/provincial labs, to find flaws. Exposing those flaws in the system and making them public through full and fair criminal trials, helps the police to do better next time. That helps the whole system to be fair for everyone including those who have been hurt by crime. There have been many miscarriages of justice in Ontario; we need better forensic science, to minimize wrongful convictions in the future.

The author of this blog is retired so I can’t be the defence lawyer who helps you find your way through the DUI tunnel. There are lots of highly skilled defence lawyers in private practice who can help you. You can find one by visiting the web site for the Criminal Lawyers Association at www.criminallawyers.ca. Your defence lawyer can hire an expert to help you with good scientific measurement evidence that will help the Court, find its way, to an acquittal. I am not an expert, but I have a lot of experience working with and cross-examining the experts, who work with the defence, and the experts who work with the Crown.

My primary role as an ongoing but retired member of the Criminal Lawyers Association is to help my colleagues through continuing education. Sometimes my colleagues hire my company, Allbiss Lawdata Ltd., to assist them in understanding what may have gone wrong, during the police investigation, specifically in relation to quantitative analysis of blood alcohol concentration.

For a fun travel video on this Sete Cidades tunnel see https://youtu.be/ivgAz7cvnZs.

If you are a Member of Parliament interested in justice issues, I urge you to follow this link:

What can a Member of Parliament do to Strengthen Forensic Science in Canada?