On television, police dramas never involve issues like jurisdictional limitations of one police department over another when pursuing a fleeing vehicle. Police in Amherst, New York, work in the real world of town and county lines at which their jurisdiction either ends or must give way to other police agencies. Such a situation occurred recently as police from Amherst realized that their pursuit of a woman suspected of driving while intoxicated was entering the jurisdiction of another police department.
As the pursuit headed into Niagara County, the officers from Amherst contacted the New York State Police to take up the chase for them. According to the police spokesperson, Troopers finally caught up with the 34-year-old female subject of the pursuit in a parking lot and charged her with a felony DWI after she was unable to successfully perform field sobriety tests. A subsequently administered chemical test revealed that the Oswego woman’s blood alcohol concentration was 0.15 percent or almost twice the legal limit for intoxication in New York.
Police charged the woman with a felony because they claimed she was on probation in Oswego County for a DWI first offense. The woman was also charged with first degree aggravated unlicensed operation and operating without an ignition interlock device that might have been part of her sentencing on for the prior DWI conviction.
The potential consequences and penalties for a person convicted of driving while intoxicated increase when the individual has a record of prior DWI offenses committed within the last ten years. A criminal defense attorney might be able to assist someone like this Oswego woman with a DWI defense to challenge the chemical testing results and other evidence to obtain a reduction in the charges or in the sentence.
Source: WIVB 4 News, “Cops work together to nab drunk driver”, July 19, 2013
