How do you get charged for DUI when you’re not driving??
Easy, here in Florida.
You can get a DUI for just being in the car, parked, keys not in the ignition, passed out drunk......................
“What the justices had to answer was whether the driveway was generally accessible to other motor vehicles. They overruled a lower court’s opinion and said yes.”
Note to self. When I start driving drunk in my own driveway, I will need to put in a gate so it isn’t “accessible to other vehicles.” It’s like here in CA, unless your property is completely fenced, you cannot legally carry a firearm on your own property, and if you shoot an intruder out there, you will be charged since “it’s accessible to the public!”
In most states the statute prohibits "operating" the motor vehicle while intoxicated. Some states have cases on the books where farmers driving their combines in their own fields while drunk have been charged with OWI.
Not sure about Michigan, but in some states DUI laws are worded to the effect of, “operated or attempted to operate a motor vehicle while under the influence.” The rationale is that if somebody stumbles out of a bar in an extreme state of intoxication and his having difficulty even getting his key in the ignition, you don’t have to wait until they put the car in motion and endager other people. The downside is that if somebody knows they’re too drunk to drive after the bar closes, they can’t run their heater and try to stay warm in the parking lot until they’re sober enough to drive.
In my state, you can be charged with DWI if the car/vehicle is turned off BUT the keys are in the ignition. So a person who realizes they had too much to drink can sleep it off in their car BUT without the keys in the ignition.
The Virginia Supreme Court has decided in two different cases that sitting in a car not running but with the keys in the ignition, or sitting in the driver’s seat of a mechanically inoperable vehicle constitutes operating a vehicle and supports a conviction of DWI. The rational is that the defendant is sitting where the operator usually sits.
My sister in 2005 was walking home from her friends house and was given a ticket for being “Drunk in public” (see Ron White).
The police officer also notified the DMV and her driver license was suspended. She soon lost her job after that as she had no way to get to work.
That officer has since been involved in 2 lawsuits that made the local paper. This is a small police dept in Robbinsdale, Minn a few miles from Minneapolis. The now ex police chief was fired after he was caught in a sting operation soliciting a prostitute.