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Recent Blog Posts
Man Foils Robbery with Taser Gun and Is Charged with Felony
People who purchase a gun tend to be aware that there are a variety of laws and other rules surrounding them, such as where the weapon is allowed to be used and how the gun may be carried. Yet, not as many people realized that a similar set of rules apply to other weapons, such as electronic defense weapons like taser guns. A Wisconsin man found that out the hard way when he stopped a robbery at a local bar, only to have prosecutors charge him with a felony.
What Happened
The man in question was at a local neighborhood bar early on a Monday morning. As the bartender was pulling drinks out of the cooler, a masked woman stood up and threatened the bartender with a handgun. The man saw the bartender taking the money out of the register, and stood up to try to help. He pulled out his taser gun and began advancing on the robber. From witness reports, it does not seem like the man actually shocked the robber. Instead, the robber fled upon seeing the taser gun, and was caught by police a few minutes later. While the robber is being charged with armed robbery and disorderly conduct, but she is not the only one charged with a crime. The man is also being charged with a felony because of the taser gun. However, it is not clear whether the district attorney will actually choose to pursue the charges in light of the fact that the man was preventing a robbery.
Wisconsin Legislature Considers OWI Five Strikes Law
Wisconsin has something of a national reputation for being lenient on people charged with OWIs. In fact, Wisconsin is the only state that still treats a first-time OWI offense as a traffic violation rather than a criminal charge. Yet, that reputation for leniency may be about to change. The Wisconsin state legislature is considering a new bill that would impose a lifetime driving ban on drivers who were convicted of five OWIs. Of course, several other bills designed to increase penalties on people convicted of repeat drunk driving offenses were introduced during the previous legislative session, and they did not pass.
The New Law's Effects
The new law would introduce a lifetime driver's license revocation for people who were convicted of five OWIs over the course of their lives. The idea behind the bill is that driving is a privilege rather than a right, and that people who cannot do it safely should not be allowed on the road. The law itself is based on a similar policy currently in place in New York, where people lose their licenses after three DUIs in 25 years or five over a lifetime.
When Car Crashes Occur Because of Vehicle Defect
When looking to assign fault in a traffic accident, most people focus on the two drivers involved. Yet, they are not the only people with control over the situation. There are times when the crash happened because of a mistake made by the car's manufacturer or designer - resulting in a vehicle defect - rather than by either of the drivers who were in the crash. From this standpoint, there are three major mistakes by a car company that can cause an accident: manufacturing defects, design defects, and failure to warn or properly instruct consumers about the danger.
Manufacturing Defects
One possible way that a car company could be at fault for a crash is if there was a manufacturing defect. A manufacturing defect occurs when the car is properly designed and should be safe, but there is an error in how it is put together. For instance, if a car is assembled at the factory in such a way that the brake pads are likely to fall off, that would be a manufacturing defect. In order to recover for a manufacturing defect, a victim must show five things:
Traffic Accidents and Verbal Statements: What You Should Not Say
One of the most difficult things for people to deal with in relation to traffic accidents and verbal statements is the fact what they say early in the process can have powerful impacts later on. People involved in traffic accidents will end up dealing with complex bureaucracies like the police department and insurance companies. People should understand that things they say at the scene of the accident or when talking to insurance companies can be used as evidence against them later in the case. In fact, people can even accidentally settle their claims without meaning to when talking to insurance companies because the law and legal ethics give clients a wide degree of authority to settle their own cases.
License Plate Readers: An Invasion of Privacy?
Police departments in Wisconsin have access to a little-known piece of technology with some surprising implications for privacy. Some squad cars now have an automatic license plate reader (ALPR). The system catalogs every license plate it passes and records the position in a police database. The ALPR system has proven useful in apprehending some criminals, such as a copper theft ring, but it also raises serious privacy concerns since it logs data indiscriminately on both potential offenders and people without any criminal history, outstanding tickets, or outstanding warrants.
How the System Works
The system works by way of four cameras mounted to the squad car, each of which face different directions. The cameras independently photograph the other cars around the squad car, reading their license plates and storing the images. The images are stored in a database along with tags indicating the location the vehicle was spotted using an on-board GPS.
Responsibility for Self-Driving Car Crashes
Although self-driving cars sound like the stuff of science fiction, they may be closer to becoming a reality than people think. Google has been testing and improving its fleet of autonomous cars for years, and the CEO of Nissan recently predicted that automated cars could be available to consumers by 2020. The rapid development of these vehicles means that they are still operating in something of a legal grey area, and open questions about a variety of issues. One of the most commonly asked of these questions is who bears responsibility in the event of a self-driving car crash.
The Problem
The problem with assigning liability in self-driving car crashes is that there are two potential options, and they both come with their own issues. First, the law could simply hold the owner liable in cases where their self-driving car crashes. However, this does not seem satisfying. After all, the person who owns the car has no control over what it does. It would be similar to a car's owner today loaning their car to someone else and had to bear the responsibility for any accidents that the person may cause.
Common Car Accident Injuries
Wisconsin drivers put themselves at risk every time they get behind the wheel. In fact, according to statistics compiled by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, there are over 100,000 traffic accidents every year on Wisconsin roads, and around 30,000 of those accidents result in injuries. It is important for drivers to understand the types of car accident injuries that can occur because there are some that reoccur commonly. These types of injuries can be broken down into three categories: general blunt trauma injuries, neck and back injuries, and traumatic brain injuries.
Blunt Trauma
Some of the most common types of car accident injuries are the ones that a person would expect based on the fact that car accidents involve impact trauma. Things like broken bones, sprains, strains, and severe contusions are all possibilities. While these types of injuries may not be as serious as other injuries that arise from traffic accidents they can still be painful, expensive, and take months to heal.
Drivers' Rights during Traffic Stops
Although many drivers understand that they have certain rights during traffic stops, often these rights are misunderstood or go unexercised. Yet, with over 200,000 traffic stops a year according to a report by the Wisconsin State Patrol, many people stand to benefit from more clearly understanding their rights when interacting with the police. With regard to traffic stops, two of the most important rights that people have are the right to not consent to searches, and the right to remain silent.
The Right Not to Consent to Searches
The Fourth Amendment provides people the right to be free from unreasonable searches. This means that police cannot simply stop a person and search their car without good reason. Instead, they need to have “probable cause” to believe that their search would turn up evidence of a crime. This is important because if an officer performs a search without probable cause, then any evidence they find cannot be used at trial.
The Seat Belt Defense: Another Good Reason to Wear a Seat Belt
There are many good reasons to wear seat belts. For instance, they limit people's injuries in car accidents, and the law requires people to wear them. Yet, most people do not think about another benefit that comes from wearing seat belts: protection from the “seat belt defense” if the person is involved in a traffic accident. The seat belt defense is a controversial defense raised by the person who caused the accident, and it argues that the victim's damages should be reduced because they were not wearing their seat belt at the time of the crash. While only 15 states recognize this defense, Wisconsin is one of them, so drivers should be aware of how the defense operates.
The Seat Belt Defense
When one driver causes an accident with another, the driver who caused the accident is allowed to raise certain defenses that reduce the amount that the liable driver would otherwise pay to the victim to cover their injuries. One of these defenses is known as “failure to mitigate damages,” meaning that even though the liable driver was negligent, there were steps that the victim should have taken to reduce the harm that they suffered. If the jury is convinced that the victim had a duty to take those steps, the victim's damages can be reduced in proportion to the amount of harm that they could have prevented on their own.
Understanding the Exclusionary Rule
The U.S. Constitution provides a variety of rights to people accused of crimes, such as the right to a jury trial, the right to avoid testifying against oneself, and the right to be safe from cruel and unusual punishment. One of the most important of these rights is the right to be protected from unreasonable searches, which comes from the Fourth Amendment. This right prevents the police from searching a person's home or property without a warrant (with some exceptions).
This criminal right is unique because of the way the government enforces it. Many constitutional rights are enforced by monetary damages. If a person has their rights violated, then they can sue the government and recover money for the harm they suffered. The protection against unreasonable searches is enforced through something known as the “exclusionary rule.” The exclusionary rule states that any evidence that police uncover as a result of an illegal search may not be used in court. Additionally, any evidence that the police later discover as a result of illegally-obtained evidence is also banned from trial under the colorfully named doctrine of “the fruit of the poison tree.”
