Posted on January 01, 2022 in Uncategorized

The last week of November was a deadly time for crashes in Houston. In a span of ten days, six people died, including two 16-year-olds. The police suspect that drinking and driving was a factor in several of the crashes. Being arrested for a suspected DWI is always scary, but when you've also been involved in a serious accident, it can be even more stressful. You could be facing serious or life-threatening injuries, and a hospital stay. The criminal justice system can be difficult to navigate, even for someone perfectly healthy, but what happens if you're in the hospital, disabled, or have memory loss?

What Happens if I'm Injured?

If you're seriously injured in a crash and the police suspect you were drinking and driving, you probably have many questions about your rights. It's imperative that you understand what the police and medical professionals can do without your consent and that you have someone protecting your rights.

Can the Police Take My Blood While I'm in the Hospital?

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 Posted on January 01, 2022 in Uncategorized

If you're facing a charge for DWI, you could be worried that this may be the end of your career or your reputation in the community. But it's important to remember that a DWI arrest is not the end of the game. You are innocent until proven guilty, and a strong defense can get you back on track. A perfect example of a come-back story is football coach Joey McGuire.

In 2015, Cedar Hill ISD football coach McGuire faced a DWI in Tarrant County. The arrest came after McGuire led his team to three state championships and turned down a coaching job at the University of Texas to coach his son at Cedar Hill. After his arrest, the school announced:

Cedar Hill ISD Head Football Coach Joey McGuire was arrested in Tarrant County early Friday morning, April 10, 2015, for an alleged Driving While Intoxicated incident. Coach McGuire voluntarily reported the incident to CHISD Administration as soon as he was able to do so. We are still in the process of gathering information and will handle any discipline internally and take appropriate action.

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 Posted on January 01, 2022 in Uncategorized

If you're facing a trial for a suspected DWI, you may wonder what rights you have before your trial. Can the police continue to test you for drugs and alcohol? How much information will the state have if you seek medical treatment? Your individual rights and personal medical history can become complex issues if police have charged you with a drug or alcohol-related crime in Texas.

Some of these issues came to light when a 24-year-old Gallup man collapsed in court before his recent sentencing hearing. The man was convicted of DWI homicide in April 2021 for a 2017 head-on collision that killed a 59-year-old man. The defendant faces up to 15 years in prison when the court sentences him for the conviction.

Emergency responders took the defendant to the hospital, and he complained of pain during the ambulance ride. State district judge Robert Aragon postponed the sentencing and ordered drug and alcohol testing of the man at the prosecutor's request. The state assistant attorney general said drug and alcohol testing was appropriate given the nature of the defendant's conviction. However, the defendant's attorney noted that he is on many medications due to his medical condition and would likely test positive for prescription pain medications.

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 Posted on January 01, 2022 in Uncategorized

If you or someone you know faces an arrest after a DWI with a fatality, you understand how tragic this can be. Knowing that someone died, even if you weren't drunk, is heartbreaking. You are still innocent unless proven guilty under the law, but you'll need an experienced and board certified DWI attorney to navigate you through the criminal justice process, particularly if you face felony DWI manslaughter charges. A Houston mother recently faced this situation.

DWI-Related Fatality

In November, a mother was driving home from a baby shower at 4:30 am and struck a traffic light in the 4200 block of E. Sam Houston Pkwy. N. The light tipped over, and then she struck a concrete barrier wall and came to a stop in a southbound service road near Woodforest. The driver had five children, ranging from two to ten years old, in the car. An ambulance took all of the children to Texas Children's Hospital for treatment. The driver's four-year-old daughter later died. Police believe that the four-year-old was unrestrained in the car and possibly sitting on the lap of another child.

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 Posted on January 01, 2022 in Uncategorized

The state of Texas takes drug crimes very seriously. Our state has some of the toughest penalties in the nation, and every year the legislature adds new "designer drugs" to Texas drug laws. And the Texas Controlled Substances Act is written broadly in an attempt to include chemically similar designer drugs. However, the law can't comprehensively prohibit what doesn't yet exist. But what if it can? Researchers at the University of British Columbia may have developed a way to predict illegal behavior related to designer drugs, but that isn't necessarily a good thing.

What are Designer Drugs?

Designer drugs are typically synthetic drugs created by slightly changing the chemical properties of a drug that comes from a plant. Synthetic marijuana variants, synthetic opioids, and bath salts are common in the U.S. These designer drugs mimic the pharmacological effects of the original drug but change the chemical composition just enough to remain technically legal and avoid detection on standard drug tests. As new designer drugs hit the streets, legislators in Texas add them to the state's drug laws. But in the meantime, it can take law enforcement agencies months to identify new substances in designer drugs and determine whether they may be illegal.

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 Posted on January 01, 2022 in Uncategorized

An arrest is always stressful. You end up worried about what will happen if you're convicted, where you'll go, and how the process works. When you're facing criminal charges, knowing what will happen next is essential. Without up-to-date knowledge about your case and the criminal justice system, you could be left floundering in jail without any idea when you'll get out.

According to a recent story in the Dallas Observer, the average jail stay for defendants awaiting trial in Harris County is 201 days. For those who receive a bench warrant in Dallas County, the average time spent in jail in the "legal process" leading up to trial is 249 days. While these lengthy stays are common in Texas's larger counties, jails aren't meant to house prisoners long-term. The Dallas Observer article highlighted some of the problems that defendants can face without an experienced attorney to advocate on their behalf.

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 Posted on January 01, 2022 in Uncategorized

If you or someone you love is facing drug charges related to prescription medications, you may be confused about the line between legal and illegal prescription medication. Often, we think of "legal" and "illegal" drugs, but prescription drugs that aren't prescribed legally are also illegal. We imagine a sketchy guy standing on a street corner selling baggies of pills. But illegal prescription drug charges encompass a lot more than simple possession or distribution, from medical professionals writing illegal prescriptions to organized theft of controlled substances from pharmacies or doctors' offices.

A Texas doctor recently faced charges for criminally prescribing more than 1.3 million doses of opioids. The U.S. Department of Justice prosecuted him, stating he "conspired to and did unlawfully prescribe controlled substances from 2014 through February 2016 for patients" at a Houston medical clinic. He now awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to unlawfully distribute and dispense controlled substances and four counts of unlawfully distributing and dispensing controlled substances. He could face up to 20 years for each count.

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 Posted on December 12, 2021 in Uncategorized

A recent media stor y highlights the unreliability of cheap, quick, and simple drug field tests. These cheap drug field tests enable authorities to pop a substance into a bag of chemicals, give it a shake, and watch the color change for a purportedly positive test result. The national story depicts the tests as popular among prison officials, including Texas prison officials, as a way to quickly and inexpensively detect illegal drugs smuggled in for prisoner abuse. Prison drug smuggling is a real problem. Drugs even come in sprayed or doused on paper and note cards for the prisoners to smoke for some kind of high. Detecting drugs is an important policing function, not just on DWI traffic stops but even in prisons. Police and the public can certainly benefit if police have available to them cheap, quick, and simple drug tests.

Drug Test Faults

Yet the national story points to the unreliability of the cheap drug field tests--and the potential long-term and serious harms from false positive tests. The story shows how false positive tests in prisons can turn an innocent inmate's world upside down, resulting in lockdowns, confiscations, daily strip searches, midnight interrogations, isolation, and extended sentences. A prisoner advocacy organization shares a story of how prison officials have mistaken a spice for marijuana, motor oil for heroin, candy for meth, breath mints for crack, and vitamins for amphetamines, resulting in months of extra jail time. The organization even used a demonstration of how just air blown into the bag of testing chemicals can produce a false positive result.

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 Posted on December 12, 2021 in Uncategorized

A recent media report out of El Paso (TX) indicates that Mexican drug cartels are spiking meth, heroin, and even marijuana with the opioid fentanyl to more quickly addict users to a dangerous high and subject an unsuspecting user to serious health risks or death. The story highlights how synthetic fentanyl is easy to produce in large quantities and highly addictive, even if also very dangerous. National Center for Health Statistics data shows that about three-quarters of the over 93,000 U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2020 involved opioids like fentanyl.

The Drug Can Make the Difference

Of course, meth, heroin, and fentanyl are all illegal drugs under federal and Texas law, even if all forms of marijuana's active ingredient THC are not. So, what's really the difference? The possibility of ingesting a different illegal drug than the one that the defendant intended to use can lead to more serious charges. Federal and Texas drug laws list drugs on different schedules and penalty groups. Possessing or distributing one drug instead of or in addition to another can increase the drug-crime charge and its potential minimum and maximum penalties. And the difference can be especially large when the spiked drug that the user purportedly didn't intend to ingest is fentanyl. While federal law only makes fentanyl a Schedule II drug, not a top Schedule I drug, Texas Health & Safety Code §481.102 places fentanyl in its top Penalty Group 1.

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 Posted on December 12, 2021 in Uncategorized

Here's one to watch out for. A recent Courthouse News Service story details a frightening incident in which opioid-tainted advocacy flyers placed on squad cars outside an East Houston sheriff's location hospitalized an officer who touched them. Trace amounts of deadly opioids like fentanyl can enter the bloodstream not just by eating, smoking, or vaping but also by simple touch. That's why Harris County Sheriff's officers carry gloves, respiratory protection, and the fast-acting naloxone anti-opioid agent. But you don't always know where you're going to find the trace opioid. Harris County Sheriff's officers are investigating the opioid-laced flyers promoting the message of an obscure non-profit advocacy organization.

Federal and Texas Drug Schedules

Texas drug laws heavily regulate opioids like the deadly fentanyl, and for a good reason. National Center for Health Statistics data attributes to opioids about three-quarters of last year's 93,000 U.S. drug-overdose deaths. A declassified Drug Enforcement Administration intelligence report attributes to China and Mexico the bulk of unlawfully imported synthetic opioids that flood U.S. illegal-drug markets. Federal and state legislatures recognize the enormous harm opioid abuse wrecks on U.S. families, communities, and the economy. Both federal Controlled Substances Act drug schedules and Texas drug penalty groups include opioids as controlled substances, meaning illegal drugs. Those schedules and penalty groups classify drugs depending on their addictive nature, their danger to users, and their benefit as medicine. Based on those factors, federal law only makes fentanyl a Schedule II drug, but Texas Health & Safety Code §481.102 puts fentanyl right at the top in Penalty Group 1. Fentanyl is certainly an extraordinarily dangerous drug, even if it and other opioids have medicinal uses as prescription painkillers.

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